MegaMan Legends: The Traitor
by Timewalkerauthor
Summary: Trigger wasn't the only Purifier with a conscience. Others fought the fight as well, but for different reasons...until a traitor came among them.
1. Collision

Megaman Legends: The Traitor

Author's Note: As you probably are aware, I don't own Capcom, Megaman, Megaman Legends, or any other piece of original intellectual property. That still doesn't stop me from trying to make something coherent out of it all, so here we go again! This fic has been stewing inside my head for about two years now, actually since before MML2 came out, so I figured it was time to try to set it down. It presents a slightly different view of the Megaman System from what seems to be implied in the games, but hopefully not too different-anyway, this was my first impression of what it was all about. It takes place in the past, a few years before the death of the Master. The main characters you will see are new, except for Yuna, Sera, Gatz, Geetz, Juno, and the Master; if Megaman Trigger appears, it will not be until later on. And, rest assured, this is not chiefly a love story, though it starts out like one and has elements of it throughout. Hope you enjoy it! Review, Please! Timewalkerauthor

Bonus note: One tiny piece of vital information, so that you don't seem surprised at the ages mentioned, is that I have cast humans as reaching adulthood at age sixteen. Therefore, when the main characters are twenty and have been married for three years, this is perfectly normal.

Megaman Legends

The Traitor

Chapter One: Collision

6:23 A.M.

On the last day of his human life, Adric Tharen caught the most fantastic sunrise he had ever seen.

It was one of those moments to write home about-not that he was too far from home, that is, but you know the expression. As he rounded the curve at the top of the cliff overlooking the bay, the sun broke the horizon in exactly the right way, showering the ocean with red-gold flames. It was as though some great gold mine had broken open and poured itself out on the world-in short, it took his breath away. So much so, in fact, that he nearly drove into the hillside to his right, only managing to correct at the last second. Halting only a moment, he scratched his head and started to reach for the mobile phone mounted in the dash, tempted to call Naomi and tell her about it. But that would ruin his whole plan, wouldn't it? The entire reason he had slipped out of the house at six a.m., leaving his wife still sleeping peacefully, and hopefully for another hour or more.

Today was his wife's twentieth birthday. Naomi had no idea, but Adric had been planning the day for weeks, and now that it was actually here, it was all he could do to contain himself enough to keep from waking her as he left this morning. The sunrise seemed like a good sign; he only wished that she could be here to share it, but if he wanted to keep this a secret, that was out of the question. It was too bad, though; she could use a good sign. What with changing jobs and moving into the new house, the last few months had been stressful for her. If they hadn't already had a few years of marriage to go on, he feared it would have been more than they could handle.

At the moment, he was going to buy her flowers. He knew, in some distant sense, that to some people that would seem trivial, but it was different here. Other than a few local wildflowers, flowers didn't grow well on Calbania Island, and it was difficult to import them fresh from other islands-the distances were too great, and the ocean temperatures in the region too harsh to make it cheap. So, a bouquet of roses cost something on the order of one hundred and sixty zen, the crystal shards used for currency. It had taken him three weeks to set the money aside for that splurge, but it would brighten her day to no end. That was worth it, even though it required driving across the island to the other of its two towns, an hour away.

Smiling, he hit the radio, and was pleasantly surprised to hear "their" song just coming on. It was the one they had danced to at their last school dance, and the one they had opened their wedding reception with. As the sun brightened to a brilliant yellow, he began singing along, and stepped a little harder on the gas. Yes, it was going to be a good day, indeed.

--

12 Noon

Naomi loved the flowers. It was all she had talked about all day, actually; it was the first time she had received roses that way, and before she would leave the house, she just had to let everyone know. By ten-thirty, all of her friends knew, as did her parents, Adric's parents, and the mailman.

Finally, they were on their way to the spot Adric had picked out, and soon lunch was under way-their first picnic in who knew how long. She was a pushover for things like that, and she was having a blast; and he had to admit, he was too. The weather was perfect, the food was good, the privacy was complete, and the company was wonderful. The smell of the ocean, so often overpowering on an island, was light and clear today...

"Moments like this are few and far between," Adric caught himself thinking at one point, and was pleasantly surprised to hear Naomi agree-he hadn't realized he had spoken aloud. "Sorry, " he apologized as she giggled at his surprised look. That was the last word he was able to get out, then, as he was caught up in her smile. A guy could easily get lost in a smile like that.

He had no way to know, of course, that soon she would be making her last smile for a long time to come.

--

5:40 pm

"Can you believe we paid twenty zen to see that movie?" Adric exclaimed as they emerged into the late-afternoon sun. "They should be paying us to see it!"

Naomi burst out laughing again. "How many times are you going to say that? It wasn't that bad!" She slipped her arm into his, linking at the elbow. "You just didn't like it because nobody died in it."

"Well, the guy should have died when that gun went off!" Adric declared loudly. "But I guess the guy just has to get the girl, or it's not a real movie, huh?"

She smacked him playfully on the arm. "Yeah, sure. Just like it's not a movie if it's not full of blood and guts, right?"

"Now you're talking!"

When they reached the car, he reached for the door handle to let her in, but she pushed his hand away. "Not yet!" Then, to his surprise, she grabbed him around the neck and pulled him down for a full kiss that lasted at least a minute. "That's for such a good day," she said as he tried to catch his breath. "If every birthday was like this, maybe women wouldn't lie about their ages so much..."

--

6:18 pm.

Naomi was dozing in the passenger seat now-the ride home from Silverton always made her sleepy, though it was only an hour. In a world consisting only of islands, there were very few long rides to be had. Adric didn't mind, though he had made her wait until they reached the spot where he had seen that fantastic sunrise, just so he could pull over and tell her about it. She looked so peaceful, a blond angel asleep beside him, one hand stretched out near the gearshift.

He was immensely glad that the day had gone so well. She looked better than she had in months, more rested, her eyes glowing with life. Adric was not, by nature, a very sentimental person, but somehow she always managed to bring that quality out in him; it was one of the reasons he had fallen in love with her. He reached over to touch her hair...

...And that momentary touch made her twitch in her sleep. Only a little, but her hand, lying so near the gearshift, jolted into it with unexpected force and knocked it out of place. The car shuddered as the engine, now in neutral, raced, and the wheel slipped in Adric's hands, swerving to the right. The front passenger tire caught the edge of the pavement, then slipped off into the jagged edge of a pothole in the shoulder, and blew out with spectacular volume. As the rear passenger tire tried to follow, the hub of the front wheel caught again, and the angle of it as Adric fought the wheel sent the car into a spin that turned into a roll, straight toward the right-hand embankment.

Two hundred vertical feet later, the car came to a stop on its roof between two trees, three tires still spinning. Inside what was left of the cab, no one moved.

The dashboard clock, one of the few things still working, read 6:23 p.m.

--

Author's Note: Well, I hope it reads well. Just a brief introductory chapter, and yes, this really does have everything to do with the main story. I'll try to work quickly on the next chapter-I pretty much have it figured out, just gotta get it down. Until next time, keep reading and reviewing!


	2. Sensation

Megaman Legends: The Traitor

Author's Note: Is it some kind of a law or something, that says we have to give these disclaimers every time? Does it really break copyright law if you just put it on chapter one and leave it at that? sigh Ah, well. Anyway, here is chapter two, and I hope it goes well! Somebody please read and review-no, really! Chapter one has NO REVIEWS at this point! Please, a little feedback! Otherwise, thanks, and enjoy!

Of Course, Capcom owns the whole shebang (well, almost): Megaman, Trigger, Sera, Yuna, Gatz, Geetz, Elysium...heck, they own the whole world of Megaman Legends! All I can lay claim to are the characters of Adric and Naomi Tharen, a few minor characters, and some facts about the Megaman System and its history.

Megaman Legends

The Traitor

Chapter Two: Sensation

Pain.

No other sensation could get through that cloud. Pain was everything, the entire world.

Memory was far behind, too dim to see clearly. There was only the pain, the awful, grinding pain; it filled every instant, every attempt at thought. Pain in the back, the neck, the head, the legs...The legs were the worst, he wasn't even sure they were still attached-he had heard of the phantom pain felt by amputees, pain in their severed limbs, but, have mercy, could it be this bad?

Adric ("Yes, that's my name," his mind managed after what seemed an age of fumbling for solid ground) had no idea there was pain like this in the world, no concept of how he could even be living with it. For that matter, he had no idea where it had all come from, or how he had gotten here. All he knew for sure was that there had been a car, and a woman in it, and then...nothing. A nothingness filled with ceaseless pain. Even the images of the car and the woman refused to come to mind; they were nothing but abstract, disjointed phrases in the ether.

Far off, quiet and distinct, a voice resonated, prim and clear, yet with an odd echo. "Awaken them, please," the voice said, and the words sank into Adric's head, defying the darkness that still waited there. He felt a small sting at his arm, a pinch really too small to be noticed against this storm of pain, yet all too real-and suddenly it was as though the world raced up on him, sped up to normal, and shoved the pain into the background. It was still there, still howling for attention, but out of sight now. His eyes flew open.

The lights were muted, and he didn't blink, though his eyes felt dry. Despite the dim light, he could clearly see the ceiling of the hospital room in which he was lying. To his right, he heard a soft gasp, and knew at once that Naomi was there, receiving the same dose as he. He stole a glance that way, and saw a burly male nurse stepping away, capping a used needle for disposal. Naomi was there, lying on a cot like his-but an unusual one, with solid sides (currently lowered) that, if raised, would give it a boxlike look. She was covered with a white sheet, like he was, but something seemed odd about her covered form; try as he might, he couldn't figure it out. She glanced at him, and he managed a smile, but it felt cold on his face.

"You are awake," the voice said again, this time louder. "That is good, for we have much to discuss."

Adric turned his head, and saw what had to be a hallucination, standing at the foot of the cot. A bald man stood there, hands folded behind his back, dressed in a white, sleeveless tunic, gathered at the waist. By itself, that was nothing unusual, though the clothes were a bit eccentric; what immediately caught Adric's eye were the silver wires running up and down his arms and neck, and even onto his head. Of the nurse, there was no sign—the odd man was alone.

"I am called Bridge," the man continued. "So that we begin on fair footing, let me review: you are Adric Tharen and Naomi Tharen, late of Calbania Island, in the South Central Sea region. Is this correct?" Adric tried to answer, but his throat was still dry; he was spared the effort when Naomi whispered an affirmative. Her voice was barely audible, but the man seemed to have no trouble hearing her. "Excellent. First let me explain your situation to you, and then I will explain myself."

"Seventeen hours ago, you were returning to your home from Silverton, the political seat of your home island, traveling by automobile. At approximately 6:20 pm, you drove off the road and over an embankment, rolling the automobile in the process. The resulting wreckage ended in a fire that consumed the vehicle, a fire from which the two of you were narrowly rescued. Your injuries, however, are quite extensive."

As he spoke, it all came rushing back at Adric-the ride, the wreck, and the darkness. A feeling of intense heat...In the same instant, it suddenly clicked in his mind, what he could not put his finger on earlier...Naomi. Her legs, underneath the sheet, were stuck at odd angles-another glance confirmed it-angles that no human body should ever attain.

The man's gaze followed Adric's. "Yes. You begin to see it. Please do not react emotionally; I have given both of you a suppressant that will hold back the worst pain, as well as dampen your emotional response. This will be quite difficult for you, I fear." He paused, then continued. "Both of you have extensive damage to the lower limbs and torso. You, sir, have internal organ trauma and broken ribs due to impact with the steering wheel of your vehicle. You, ma'am, have suffered a broken rib, which has resulted in a punctured lung and extensive internal bleeding. There is cranial trauma for both of you, though your brains have sustained nothing worse than mild bruising-a fortunate situation. Injuries have been sustained in motor nerve trunks, and various parts of your endocrine systems have been damaged. There is more, as well, but I do not think I need to go on."

"Suffice it to say, in summation, that each of you has sustained injuries that will very shortly be fatal. The doctors here have done what they can, but it will not be sufficient to save you. In a matter of hours, you will die."

Both of them must have gone a shade paler, Adric thought, because the man paused and frowned first at him, then at Naomi.

"You are justifiably disturbed, I understand," he continued. "Who would not be? But I have a proposition for you, one that can save your lives. Will you hear me out?" Adric managed a nod; what else could he say? It was a difficult thing to hear, that one was about to die. "Good! I thought you would say yes. Now, let us begin; we have little time, and much you must know."

--

"The world," Bridge began, "is not as you believe it to be. You have been taught all your lives that you are a race of humans, normal humans, the product of evolution over many millennia. You have a history, you believe, and a race identity, stretching back countless ages. All of this, sadly, is a lie."

"For your ancestors, the world began less than seven hundred years ago, as I will soon explain. The truth lies with my kind, and those who brought us into being. We are like humans, yet we are both far more and far less. There are many of us, but we are known to only a few of you. We are the Megamen."

Naomi, at least, was getting her voice back. "Wh...what does that mean?" she said softly, her voice a dry rasp. It made Adric's heart ache to hear the pain still in it.

"In all the world, there are only three true humans remaining-those humans born of the natural line of your race, with no interference. Once there were many more, but over the generations, they have died out, until only three remain. Because of those humans, whom we call Alphas, we exist. My kind and I make up the Megaman System, a massive organization of androids and cyborgs. Do you understand those terms? Androids-what you might call robots, though very advanced and complex. They are the bulk of our System. And cyborgs, those who are partially android and partially organic, like you. I am the latter, a cyborg.

Adric nearly shrank back in horror at the thought. It was something out of the sci-fi novels on his bookshelves at home, man fused with machine. Nevertheless, he did understand, and he was certain Naomi did too; they had read those books together once or twice.

"The truth, children, is that the world is our domain. The Alphas rule the world, and we, the Megaman System, execute that rule for them. Also, we care for the Alphas, and ensure their comfort. That is our entire purpose in existence, and the reason that they created us. At this point, I will not waste time in explaining how it came to be so; that would take far more time than you have remaining. Suffice it to say that it is so."

"Also suffice it to say that your kind, the common people, were created by us. We call you carbons, or Betas, indicating that you are the secondary type of organic humans on the planet, with the Alphas being the first. I do not mean that we designed you, or invented you; I mean that your earliest ancestors were created seven hundred years ago as clones of all the Alphas. We gave you your culture, your language, your history. The Alphas rule the world, and the Betas populate it-and never do the Betas know the truth. For you see, the Alphas have what the Betas can never have."

"Peace."

"Life."

"Youth."

"Health."

"All of these, and in endless supply. We could not give it to all the Betas if we wanted to, because they are too many. And that is why none of you know the truth."

"So, why are you telling us?" Adric managed.

Bridge frowned then. "That is difficult to explain; yet I must. Otherwise, my coming here is for nothing." His eyes brightened. "And that would be disastrous for all of us. Let us try, then." He paused, thinking.

"Those individuals like myself, who are part of the System, are divided into five classes. This is based on authority, complexity, and capability. Five is the lowest, consisting of workers who have relatively limited thought capacity and ability. The highest is first class, which includes the Purifier units who police the System, eliminating defective units. I am an Ambassador unit, Second Class, meaning that I am a high-level liaison between the System and those few Betas who know of our existence."

"I was 'born,' if you prefer that term, in a crèche on a remote island called Kattelox, where cloned humans are created. I was neither an Alpha nor a Beta. I was what is termed a 'Gamma,' which is to say, a human with no individuality, no personality. Gammas are created solely for the purpose of becoming cyborg units like me. Approximately twenty-five percent of the System consists of Gamma cyborg units. Are you following me so far?" Both patients nodded, still taking it all in. "Good. Let us move on, then. You understand, however, that I am giving you only the barest outline of the truth here; your time will allow no more."

"The System was created to avert a crisis the likes of which the world has not since seen. That crisis threatened the very existence of humanity, and left the surviving humans with few options. The System was their answer, and a good one, at that. However, there is one fatal flaw in the system, of which I and a few others like me have become aware. It is quite simple, really: the System is guilty of the worst possible genocide. It has destroyed the entire Beta race, not once, but twice. Every thousand years, it wipes out all Betas, then re-creates a new race from the original genetic codes."

"That's horrible!" Naomi said, outrage tingeing her voice. "Why would they do that? Create us, then destroy us?"

"I do not know," Bridge admitted. His face creased in worry, and his frown reappeared. "In all my efforts, I have not found that out. That information is held only by the Mother units, the two androids who oversee the System. Nevertheless, I think you will agree that this is a crime of the highest order. For this reason, I have come to you; allow me to continue."

"Most units in the System are bound to the will of the System, unable to take so much as another viewpoint. This was true for me also, but I was...tampered with...by a woman I greatly respected. An Alpha, the woman who designed the cyborg unit interface, tampered with my circuits to free me from the System's will. She proceeded to tell me what I am telling you, and then...her life was extinguished. By her own hand, if you wish to know." Bridge thought for a moment. "She was a friend, I would say. Her last act before dying was to commission me to attempt, in any way I can, to destroy the System, or at least destroy its ability to repeat this crime. That was twenty-eight years ago. Since then, I have recruited a few others to my cause—all gamma cyborgs, because the Mother units can scan the minds and memories of non-cyborg units. They cannot do so with my kind, because the organic brain cannot be touched by their probes against our will."

He paused, took a deep breath, and looked directly at the two humans. "This is where your situation becomes involved. In all my years, I have never been able to recruit a first class unit. That is what is needed, because only a first class unit can access the secure areas, which must be reached in order to perform the type of destruction that is necessary. As well, it must be a cyborg unit, for the reasons I have given you. Ordinarily, as I said, even a cyborg cannot disobey the System, because the Gammas are created tabula rasa, a blank slate, and then conformed to the System's template. They must be tampered with in order to disobey, and I cannot do so to any unit higher than my own class. So, you can see the impasse I have reached."

"I want to propose that the two of you be transformed into Megamen. More specifically, you will become Purifier units, First Class. On way or another, your old life has reached an end. If you accept, you will live and be healed. You will have a new purpose, and a new identity. Yet you will not forget your old lives; in truth, those memories will be your strength. You would be weapons, attacking the System from the inside. It may take years for the opportunity to present itself, years in which you would faithfully serve the System by hunting and destroying aberrant, or defective units, but at some point, the time will come. Most importantly, you would be able to do what I cannot: complete the mission I was given."

"This is the only chance at life remaining to you. It is yours if you wish it. For the sake of your lives, for the sake of your world, and your very race...what will you choose?" He fell silent, then turned away, obviously giving them some privacy.

Adric turned as best he could toward Naomi, his mind whirling. In just a few short minutes, their entire world ...all they had ever known...was turned on end. It was almost laughable-the entire world they knew was a lie, and now it all depended on the decision of two accident victims? The look on Naomi's face stopped him from saying so.

She smiled again, a look that was full of despair, yet mixed with faint hope. "So, this is it?" she murmured. "We're going to die. I guess we don't have many choices, do we?"

He tried to smile back, and actually made it halfway. Though the pain was incredible, he stretched a stiff right arm out across the gap between them, and took her fingers in his hand. "Don't say that," he whispered. "You can't die. It's your birthday." His smile slipped into a frown, then. "Some birthday present, I guess."

"Don't you say that!" she retorted. "You didn't do this. It's just what happens." She winced. "The question is, what do we do now? Live, or die?" She fell silent a moment, then declared softly, "I believe what he says."

"I do, too," Adric admitted after a moment. ""I can't let you die, honey. And, so, I guess...there's really no choice, is there?"

"Excellent," Bridge's voice interrupted. "I am most pleased. Now, I will put you in stasis, so that your condition does not become worse. I have already placed you in stasis boxes, to facilitate the process. You will feel nothing until you awaken, after the reconstruction process." Suddenly, Adric remembered the boxlike sides on the cots, and realized what he meant by "stasis boxes." "I will not speak to you again for some time. When I do, you will understand far better. Until then, my friends..."

Then the darkness returned, and Adric knew nothing more.


	3. Reconstruction

Megaman Legends: The Traitor

Author's Note: As stated on many occasions, Capcom owns the original intellectual properties here—I'm just borrowing them. As I'm not making any money for this (and how I wish I was!), I suppose it's legal. Anyway, they get the credit, I get the blame. Seriously, Megaman and everything associated with it is the property of Capcom; only selected characters and concepts in this work belong to me. This is chapter three, now resubmitted! Please read it if you are new, or re-read it if you are not. These games are a little outdated now, but they are still great, and I hope you will find my work to be just as good. Whether you do or not, please review and tell me so. Thanks! Timewalkerauthor

Megaman Legends

The Traitor

Chapter Three: Reconstruction

In stasis, you are not supposed to dream. Adric didn't know that at the time, but years later, near the end of it all, he remembered, and chose to ask. The med workers told him then that stasis was like a pause in time for the subject, a localized phenomenon where the passage of time is shut off, so to speak, so that the subject doesn't age while he or she is in stasis. That was the whole reason that Adric and Naomi had been placed in stasis, so that their wounds would not grow worse while they awaited mechanization. No, the med workers told him, he couldn't have dreamed, because the minute the stasis field was activated and the minute that it was deactivated were one and the same, at least for him--though in truth, it was more than a week between the two. There was simply no time for it.

Adric knew better.

The dreams had come anyway, no matter what the med workers said, and twisted dreams they had been. In one, Adric stood on a hillside above his hometown on Calbania, watching time race by at lightning speed below, until centuries had passed and only a few broken ruins remained overlooking the sea. Another showed massive ships in the air, battling over the open water, then crashing and burning. There was an island of sand, with flames rolling over its surface...a tower of steel rising above the water, with a massive gate in its pinnacle, radiating danger...Naomi, a thousand times over, dying, each death more agonizing than the last. Worst of all, and for no reason Adric could identify, was the last dream he remembered. He found himself kneeling on a cold steel floor, head down, nearly shaking with weariness and anger and pain. He reached up to his cheek, and felt a scratch there; his fingers came away with blood on them. Somehow, that small streak of blood was worse than everything he had seen combined; it seemed to take in all the others, encompass them, and bring all the death and tragedy together into one horrible purpose. Before he could grasp it, he could feel himself shutting down; it was more than he could handle. After that, he dreamed no more.

--

Awakening was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. It was not like rising from unconsciousness, as it had been all his life--nothing gradual, no rising from slumber to perception, then comprehension. No, this time, it was instantaneous. One moment, Adric was sleeping; the next, he was on his feet, wide--awake and ready for action.

The next instant, he was writhing on the floor, not in pain but in shock, as knowledge poured into his head. The stream was so sudden, and so overwhelming, that his body simply fell from control, and he hit the floor.

Dimly he could hear a calm, even voice telling him...something...Adric couldn't make it out. The data streaming into him seemed to wash out the senses, demanding place in his head. Status checks, body monitoring, processor self--checks, sensor sweeps, strength diagnosis, armor node logs, system uplink data...off somewhere nearby, it seemed someone was screaming, but Adric couldn't be sure—that is, until a helpful little power consumption meter popped up in his sight and told him that it was his vocal cords making that output. It was enough to make him scream again.

Finally, after what seemed like forever (though an internal clock supplied that it had only been 3.357 minutes), the flow trickled off, and then died completely. Adric sat up then, still breathing heavily, and opened his eyes.

The room he found himself in was white and silver, lit so brightly that he at first couldn't see anything. His eyes adjusted after a moment ("VISUAL COMPENSATION ACTIVATED"), however, and shapes materialized--a bed like the one he had been in, stasis--box panels lowered; three silvery figures off in one corner; a doorway in the wall, opening onto a silver corridor. He leaned back against the frame of his own bed, and took a deep breath.

"Overseer!" a voice called from behind him. "This unit has awakened fully. Please inspect."

"Acknowledged," a feminine voice answered, and Adric heard the soft click of footsteps. A woman stepped into his view, a woman with tanned skin and close--cropped black hair, dressed in a short, gray tunic with an instrument belt. Before he could say anything, she was kneeling beside him, passing a small, humming device over his body. "Basic scan appears to be in order," she announced. "All body systems check out for primary activation." She made adjustments on the device, and then slowly moved it over Adric's head, watching its small screen carefully. "The neuroprocessing unit has meshed adequately with the cranial tissue and cortex. Final development will proceed in connection with lower functions over a twenty--four hour period, as per design. All mental--physiological capacities have been reached." Standing up, she straightened her tunic, put the device back on her belt, and looked down at him. "This unit is now fully active. Formal designation is Megaman Tracer, Purifier Unit First Class Alpha, activation code 013573692--A. I, Megaman Ceres, Medical Unit Third Class, declare this unit to be active and ready for training." Then she walked away.

Adric was too stunned by the whole display to do anything. He was spared, however, when the owner of the other voice—another woman, this one shorter than the first, and with pale skin—stepped around the table. His brain had instantly thought "doctor" when looking at the first woman; this one he identified as "nurse". "Welcome to the System, Tracer," she said smoothly, her voice warmer than the other. "Allow me to assist you." She offered a hand, and a smile.

Adric took the hand, and rose to his feet—but in her willowy grip, he felt an amazing strength. He suddenly had the feeling that this small girl could probably have lifted an automobile without much trouble. The thought brought back Bridge's words from that day—it seemed so near, and yet so long ago—when he had told them about the System. "Probably an android," Adric thought to himself.

She was motioning him toward the bed he had vacated. "Wait here," she instructed as he hoisted himself back onto it. As he did so, he got his first look at his own clothing—the same gray tunic, sleeveless and long enough to reach his ankles; more of a robe than a tunic, really, and banded with red at each hem. Of his injuries, there was no sign. "The trainers will be here soon to accompany you. Until then, I suggest you rest, and look over your internal reports. It will seem strange to you, at first. I will be here if you need me. My designation is Megaman Vitala, Medical Assistance Unit Third Class." With another smile, she turned and glided off after the doctor.

Adric sat back, thinking. To say it seemed strange...well, that was an understatement! Confusion seemed to be the order of the day. Briefly he wondered if a real Gamma would have been given some kind of introductory training before the procedure, to make the process more understandable. At the least, it would have helped to know what to expect. It was too late for that now, though; he would just have to play it by ear.

Internal Reports—what did that mean? It could only mean one thing, really: that massive influx of data from the various parts of his new body. Now that it was past, his curiosity returned, and his fear began to subside. Already, he thought he understood a little of what he would find there; Bridge had referred to them as cyborgs, man fused with machine, and it only made sense that the machine would include some kind of diagnostic programming. So, taking another deep breath, he thought the words "INTERNAL REPORTS," making them bold, a command.

A window popped up in his mind, glowing green and blue. Words flashed across it: "CATEGORY?" and, below that, "1. INTERNAL SYSTEMS 2. SYSTEM UPLINK 3. ARMOR AND WEAPONS 4. REGULATION AND SELF--REPAIR 5. MEMORY LOGS". Adric frowned; then, reaching out in some way that he couldn't explain, he "pointed" to selection 1, internal systems. What followed was a bizarre combination of images, sensations, and text, some written, some voiced directly into his mind—and when he was finished, Adric understood far more about his new body and new life than he had ever imagined.

--

The body of a Megaman cyborg was approximately eighty—five percent organic, and fifteen percent mechanical when at rest. Adric could feel each enhanced part and system individually as he became aware of the changes that had been wrought on him, could feel each system waking up within him—could, in fact, "see" the changes in his mind's eye. What he saw was amazing.

His bones were now almost unbreakable. Every bone was laced with a network of nanofilaments that were a thousand times or more stronger than steel, and fashioned so that if one broke, the others would adjust to redouble the support on that spot while the broken strand was fixed. The net result was that it would have taken a pressure of many tons per square inch to so much as fracture a bone.

His muscles and tendons were also shot through with filaments, but in such a way that they had maximum flexibility as well as maximum tensile strength. Overall, his strength was so vastly increased that without assistance, he could have lifted several tons in each hand without sweating. As well, leg strength was enhanced; if he couldn't have lifted a building, he could likely jump onto it. Or over it.

Internal organs had been enhanced as well, to improve efficiency. Stranger, though, was a modification that allowed him to suspend organic function for a time if need be—essentially, if he had to, he could go without breathing, without blood flow, without eating. During that time, the power plant of his mechanical components would provide energy directly to his organic components by way of the filament network, and would convert waste products directly to energy.

Most remarkable of all was the system that controlled it all. Examining a view of his skull, he discovered that his brain had shrunk; or, more to the point, condensed, so that the same amount of cortical matter occupied a smaller space. The extra space, located mostly over the upper left hemisphere, was filled with an asymmetrical device, about half the size of his fist, which merged with his upper brain, and was slowly forming connections to his lower brain as well. His new memories told him that it was a neuroprocessor, and that it was ultimately responsible for controlling every part of him now, both organic and inorganic. He still thought with his brain, but the processor took those thought—commands and made them reality; and, in a few hours, he would be able to regulate and control all his lower body functions as well. That would include healing, as he discovered in the self—repair and weapons section.

Internal Systems told him about what he was; when he moved to Armor and Weapons, he discovered who he was. The section first gave him a brief explanatory unit; here he learned that Purifiers were unique among all Megamen. Every other unit of third class or higher, android or cyborg, no matter what its basic purpose, had at least two forms between which it could transform—one for basic function, and one for combat, should the need arise. Some units had three or more forms, depending on the jobs they were created to perform. Purifiers, however, had only their basic form, which was always that of a human—later he would find that this was so they could move unnoticed among the Betas—and without any of the specialized features that adorned the bodies of many units; instead, they were gifted with highly specialized battle armor. This armor was strong enough to withstand a great deal of punishment; as well, it had transformational capabilities of its own, meaning that it could be programmed to produce a variety of weapons.

The armor was not a part of him; it had to be worn, and he obviously had not received it yet. He learned, though, that once he received it, it would be attached to his systems—"grafted" was the word the tutorial used—so that he could control its systems with his neuroprocessor. As well, he found that he carried a system that could compress the molecular structure of the armor, in the same way that his brain had been compressed, but on a much greater scale; combined with this was a feature of the armor itself that allowed its materials to convert to a liquid. In liquid form, the materials contained memory properties that would allow it to "remember" its solid form; in fact, that was the method it used to produce its weapons, as new memory modules were installed. The total effect of all of this was that the armor could be drawn into a small receptacle within his body at will, and then released at his convenience. This would allow him to quickly don and remove his armor, without ever actually removing it. The lowest layer of the armor consisted of a thin, durable jumpsuit, which could be left behind when the armor was retracted, so that he would not be left naked. Moreover, if he did actually remove the armor, it would remain keyed to him, so that no one else could use it; as well, he could control it remotely, in a very limited way.

It was that succinct summary that drove home to Adric—no, to Tracer—that he was no longer the man he had been. He realized that he would always carry Adric Tharen inside, but it would have to be as an observer, hidden away from prying eyes. In this new world, he was Megaman Tracer; he would have to be, if he wanted to survive even one day, let alone to complete the mission Bridge had placed on them. Blending in would require armor of the mind, and of the heart, as well as of the body.

So, with a conscious act of will, he buried himself. Thought by thought, he erected walls around his true self, his personhood, until it was invisible even to his own mind—walls constructed of redirections and deflections for his thoughts. Cautiously, in moments that seemed to stretch for days, he fashioned a shell—the Fortress, he would later come to call it—for Adric Tharen to occupy, and then he taught himself to shy away from it whenever it came near. Then, he painstakingly constructed a personality for Megaman Tracer, thinking through what it must have been like for an Alpha unit, coming as they did from the Gammas. The end result was enough like his own personality as Adric that it felt comfortable and familiar, but alien enough to make him think about his words and actions before he made them, to ensure that they fit in.

When he finished, he was exhausted in mind, if not in body—but he forced himself to continue. "Memory Logs" struck a little too close to home, so he only glanced into that report; he saw that it was an empty file in which memories, at his choosing, could be stored. His memories would still reside in his organic brain, but anything he stored here would also be copied into his neuroprocessor so that it could be examined later, especially in the event of his destruction. With a shudder, he closed the file, and returned to "Regulation and Self—Repair".

The tutorials in this section shed more light on his involuntary systems—or rather, those systems that had previously been involuntary. When his neuroprocessor was fully interfaced with his brain, he would be able to control his metabolism, his endocrine system, his circulation, his respiration…if left alone, they would function as normal, but at will he could speed them up, slow them down, or even temporarily stop them, allowing his non--organic systems to take up the responsibility. He could examine any part of himself, right down to the submolecular level, and do what was necessary to ensure proper function. In other words, he could heal himself at will—in fact, there was ordinarily no need to will it, because his body's automatic repair systems would do it for him. A bruise or a cut would heal practically instantaneously; a fracture or internal damage would take a minute or two, but still faster than he would ever have dreamed.

He neared the end of the file quickly, as most of the functions listed had yet to establish themselves. To Adric, it was all very surreal, but to Tracer, it was merely a pleasant surprise—until he reached the concluding summary, which stunned him to his very core, man and Megaman alike.

With these enhancements, barring unforeseen circumstances, he would never die.

--

Author's note: Not an action chapter, but it is coming. I promise! Soon it will begin to make more sense, I hope. Anyway, if I'm handling this all wrong, PLEASE say something—the entire point here is to get better at this, and to write a good story, so speak up! Thanks, and keep reading!


	4. Activation

Megaman Legends: The Traitor

Author's Note: Usual disclaimer and all that. There are a few things in here that I own, but not many—that would be Adric, Naomi, Vitala, and a few quirky concepts about the nature of the Megaman Legends universe. Other than that, you guessed it, Capcom owns everything. This is chapter four of a work that could potentially be very long, but at the rate I'm writing, the Playstation and all its games will be pale memories by the time I finish. I am getting better, though; it's been less than a year since my last post, and I think that constitutes a record for me. Anyway, if you're new, please read the other chapters—now slightly revised and re-posted. Review! Tell me what you think! Even if you hate it! Thanks again. Timewalkerauthor.

Megaman Legends

The Traitor

Chapter Four: Activation.

Anxiety was a new feeling for Naomi. Until the accident, her life had been safer than most; she had good parents who doted on her and her two younger brothers, and who had always provided everything she needed. She had never thought of herself as spoiled, but life had been comfortable, if not extravagant. When Adric came into her life—well, face it, he had always been there; Calbania was a small island, and San Luce was an even smaller town—it was like stepping from one lighted room to another with no darkness between.

There was darkness now, and anxiety too, though she wasn't ready to call it fear yet. Since awakening, hours ago, she had not seen Adric at all. Deep inside, she suspected—no, she knew—that he had not survived the process of becoming a Megaman. In all the dark moments since the accident, precious few though they were, she had never considered the possibility that only one of them would make it. She had faced the possibility, upon waking in the room with Bridge, that both of them would die, but the Ambassador unit's words had been a lifeboat in a sea of turmoil; she had clung to the promise that they would live. Now, the prospect of living on forever—she too had studied her internal reports—without Adric seemed worse than any kind of death.

"Megaman Nova?" With a start, Naomi realized that it was the third time the voice had spoken. She turned and saw Megaman Vitala standing in the doorway. The Medical Assistance unit ("nurse," her mind insisted) looked entirely human, but there were giveaways; for one, she was female, but androgynous in nearly every way. Short hair, no breasts to speak of, only the faintest ghost of curvature at her hips—this was a woman who would never excite any sexual passion in a man. Although she was clearly an adult, the effect was like looking at a child, one you wanted to protect. Naomi was no fool; knowing the little she had gleaned about Kattelox Island and the Gammas from which she herself had, ostensibly, sprung, she was certain that Vitala's asexuality was intentional. It wouldn't pay to suppress the gammas' personalities until they reached adulthood—a fact she found somehow repulsive—only to light a fire in the sex drive just as they became Megamen.

There was another indication that the woman wasn't human; it was the telltale look of supreme, supernatural patience on her face as Naomi failed to respond. Again, for the millionth time, Naomi realized just how careful she would have to be in this new life. A wrong word or response would bring suspicion on her, she was sure. She didn't know what would happen if she was found out, but she had a feeling that it would not be pleasant.

Better get it over with. "Yes?"

Vitala's expression remained the same. "Now that your training is complete, I am here to take you to the armor laboratory for grafting. Follow me, please." She turned and glided out the door, leaving Naomi—Nova, she reminded herself—no choice but to follow. That was they way of the System, Nova was discovering: efficient, to the point, and not given to unnecessary talk.

Kattelox Island was enormous. The entire facility, from what Nova could tell, was underground, with only its as-yet-unseen entrances breaking the surface. Vitala led her through miles of corridor ("2.751 miles," said a display in her mind) before finally arriving at the armor lab. Along the way, they passed several other medical labs, the mechanization sector in which she had first awakened, and numerous small recharging stations where, she learned, the lower-class units came to charge their power cells, as they were not equipped with the same fusion units as their higher-level counterparts.

En route, her anxiety only intensified. Where was Adric? If he was still alive, she had seen no sign of it. She knew that there were other mechanization units, other training areas, and so forth; it was possible that he had awakened elsewhere; the problem was that she had no way to know. Even if she had known what name they had given him, it would raise any number of red flags if a newly awakened unit started asking questions about another newly awakened unit. Or would it? Perhaps the Gammas knew their names before they were mechanized—perhaps, possibly, these names were the only names the Gammas ever had. But, even if that were true, how could she know whether they were supposed to have been…crèche-mates, for want of a better word? Surely there was a back-story that Bridge or one of his converts had fabricated for them, but she didn't know it. Moreover, did the Gammas even feel anything toward each other, or were their personalities too suppressed for even that humanity?

Despite all of that, she was on the verge of asking, anyway, even though her questions would have been so vague and generalized as to be useless. She was forestalled by their arrival at the armor lab.

The lab was dark, the first dark chamber she had seen. The long left wall was lined with large monitors and consoles, most of which were manned. The units seated there were humanoid, but with translucent skin that glowed with a pale blue light; silver tracework ran from their heads, down their shoulders, and onto their hands, terminating in long silver filaments that fanned out over their fingers, playing over their consoles at all times. The filaments seemed to be accomplishing more than the workers' hands; the panels lit up in response to their gossamer touch. Nova supposed that the units were androids; she couldn't imagine any modification that would cause a human body to look like that. Her suspicion was confirmed when Vitala caught her stare. "Operator units, third class," she stated. Not third class alpha, Nova noted, therefore she was correct; they were android, not cyborg.

Nova turned her attention to the opposite wall, where there was a row of strange arrays. They looked like medical tables, but lower, perhaps only two feet from the floor. Suspended above each table was a black metal rack, medieval and wicked. It had a series of hardpoints fitted with restraints that would fit a human body at a number of points—the temples, the neck, the lower ribs, the pelvis, each knee, each ankle, and each foot. Sensors—or what appeared to be sensors—were slung at each corner of the rack, and a rat's nest of wires and cables ran off in all directions. Nova felt a ripple of fear just looking at it.

The fear vanished in an instant when she saw the figure sitting on the edge of the second table, feet stretched out comically in front of him. It was Adric.

He rose in one smooth motion, without using his hands for support—a feat not remarkable, but notable for the fact that it was not entirely human. She knew, then, that he too had survived the procedure unscathed. He was still Adric, but he was now a Megaman, too.

He extended a hand to her, as if they were meeting for the first time. "Greetings. I am Megaman Tracer, Purifier unit first class alpha."

"And I am Megaman Nova, also a Purifier unit first class alpha." She shook his hand, and a surge of feelings swept through her. _Concentrate_, she willed herself. If she broke now, they would both suffer; she knew they had to act like strangers, but it was so hard. " It is good to meet you; I see that you, too, are newly awakened." At least, it was hard for her; Adric—Tracer—didn't seem to be having any trouble. Somewhere inside her, a warning bell went off.

"Indeed. It seems we are both here to receive our armor." He smiled. "I have heard that it is a somewhat painful experience. Also, it must be endured, as pain responses must be active in order to ensure a successful graft. I am…hesitant about the experience."

"I, as well." Painful? It was the first she had heard of that, although those racks looked like they could easily render some pain. "How can we bear it, then?"

"Perhaps we can take comfort in knowing that we are each not alone." He glanced at Vitala, then back at Nova. "It is good to have a partner with which to share a burden."

Naomi felt a knot loosen in her heart, one that she hadn't even recognized. _He hasn't changed, _she thought. _He's only covering up. And I had better learn to do the same._

"It is time," Vitala announced, interrupting them. "Please disrobe and lie down on the tables." She stepped back from the foot of the tables and linked her hands behind her back, maintaining her characteristically patient look. Tracer glanced at her again, then tugged the collar of his tunic over his head.

Not willing to hesitate—even modesty could be dangerous here—Nova pulled off her own tunic and dropped it in a bin at the foot of the table. Before lying down, she glanced at Adric's naked form, already lying down on his own table. She knew every mark on him, every old scar, every freckle; now, studying him, she saw no scars from the accident, no evidence of the terrible trauma they had endured. When her eyes met his, she knew he had been watching her, as well, and thinking the same thing—among other things, undoubtedly, a thought that nearly made her blush.

Fiercely, she suppressed that line of thought. Tragic though it was, she knew they would never again be as husband and wife. The best they could hope for was to serve together. Still, after lying down, she reached out on an impulse—and felt his hand slip into hers. Only a momentary squeeze, no more than one could expect for encouragement from any sympathetic party, but she carried it with her into the pain that, very shortly, made itself known.

--

A door opened at the far end of the room, opposite the door Nova had entered. A line of units marched in and arrayed themselves around each bed, three to a side, and one at each end. She recognized them from the walk to the lab as Technician units, fourth class; they were distinctive because, although they were humanoid, they were not in any way human; they were metal-skinned and finished in a metallic blue, and each was fitted with four arms, but only one eye. They stood still for a moment; then, at some unheard signal, they sprang into sudden action. With their lower arms, they lifted her as effortlessly as if she were paper, hoisting her to about two feet off the table. She heard a hum as the black rack descended, and then it was around her. Using their upper arms, the Technicians quickly fastened the restraints around her at all the proper points; then they filed out to the middle of the room and assembled in a tight formation, waiting. There was a series of clicks as the restraints sealed themselves, and Nova was left dangling in the heart of the rack.

What happened next was a blur of frenzied activity. Nova could only see what was occurring above her, but the noises she could hear from below told her that a mirror image was being performed there, as well. She watched as the lights of diagnostic sensors played over her body, one after another in rapid succession. They did not scan her entire body; rather, they seemed to be moving over one part at a time, but in no comprehensible sequence. For every part that was scanned, another beam cut the space above her, plaiting lines of energy with hazy, electric force fields to mold the shapes of the corresponding pieces of armor. Nozzles rotated into position and filled the molds with shimmering liquids in a rainbow of colors. As each piece was completed, a small hovering sensor eye flitted around it like a hummingbird around a flower; if it found the piece unsatisfactory, new nozzles came and siphoned out the liquids, and more liquids were poured. If the piece was acceptable, the eye landed on it; with a _whump _like a tiny explosion, it released a burst of energy into the piece, and took off again. The piece crackled with blue lightning, then took on a sharpness and solidity it had not possessed before. The, it would ripple back into liquid form, and the mold would drop down and make contact with Naomi's bare skin. The mold would wink out, and the liquid would pour into place—or rise, if from beneath her—before reforming into the armor section. Whenever this happened at a point where she was restrained, the restraint would snap open, withdraw, and close again over the piece, all in a matter of two or three seconds.

The entire process was like a cloud of bees buzzing around her. The armor came together piece by disjointed piece, without any apparent plan. Nova nearly forgot about all of that, however, the instant the first drop of liquid touched her; it was like liquid fire burning the skin from her. For the second time that day, she found herself screaming. Inside her mind, she fumbled for the command that would shut off her pain sensations, but she found it blocked. She knew her body was repairing the damage as fast as it happened—that when it was over, there would not even be a mark on her. It _felt _like she was being skinned alive.

She felt something bore into the back of her left shoulder then, a white-hot pain like nothing in her experience. In its own way, it was more intense than the pain of the accident, more than the pain she had felt in her mangled legs in the stasis capsule. The heat faded, and a lance of cold speared into the same spot, followed by a feeling like a thousand needles burrowing into the flesh around the wound.

In her mind, she suddenly found herself in the ARMOR AND WEAPONS menu. New streams of information were pouring in, fleshing out the bare outline that had been there before. Specifications, capabilities, power levels, sensor readings, transformational tutorials—all of it flowed into her from her new armor, as fast as she could handle it. In seconds ("27.4 seconds"), as the pain finally began to fade, she felt as though she had been wearing the armor all her life. It felt comfortable, and powerful—moreover, it felt _right._

The rack descended until she felt the table beneath her back. With a series of snaps, the restraints released her, and the rack withdrew. She sat up, and saw that Tracer was already on his feet. The first sight of him, as she stood up, took her breath away.

His armor was sleek and metallic. It was finished in a deep blue, with black accents at the joints and the waist. Blue boots, squared at the toe, rose gracefully up to polished blue greaves that terminated in points just below the segmented black metal of the knee joints. Silver gleamed in the lines between the segments, then gave way to more polished plates up his thighs and pelvis. The waist of the armor was more segmented black, centered on a black disk a hand's-breadth wide. A gleaming blue breastplate followed the curvature of his ribs, sweeping up to blue and silver epaulets that projected out over his already-broad shoulders. From there, his arms were encased in blue to match his legs, terminating in blue and black gauntlets with silver highlights. More black ran up his neck to his jaw line, where it met a sleek, raptor-like helmet that swept forward and down over his brow. A black visor covered his face, completing the effect and hiding every human element.

With a whir, the visor retracted into the top of his helmet, revealing his face. 'What do you think?"

"It looks…striking. Very impressive." Truthfully, she couldn't take her eyes away.

"Yours, as well," he said, looking her up and down. "That's a good color for you." She glanced down, and saw that her own armor was red with grey accents and silver highlights. It was hard to tell without a mirror, but she thought that, although the basic configuration was the same, certain details—the shoulder shields, for one—were more compact, more trim, more suited to a woman's physique.

Glancing up again, she saw Tracer's eyes flick toward the foot of the table behind her; she turned and saw Vitala approaching. "Your external diagnostics indicate a complete and sound graft," the Medical Assistance unit said, including each of them in her gaze. "As well, you appear to have attained a rapport with each other. That is good. It is common for those in your position to do so, despite the brevity of the grafting experience, due to the great pain involved. Fortunately, henceforward you do not need to experience any pain that you do not wish to experience."

She bowed then, formally. "I have already said it, but now I do so again. Welcome to the Megaman System, Tracer"—she bowed to him—"and Nova"—and to her. "Today you have truly become Megamen. Although you have yet to perform your duties, you are fully prepared now to do so. You will each be a valuable addition to our world." She paused, then looked toward the second door, the one the Technicians had used. "I will take you now to the administrative sector, where you will be greeted by the island administrator, Megaman Juno. He will communicate with Mother One and Mother Two to determine the best placement for you. For lower-level units, there are placement plans, requiring no direct intervention; when a first class unit is activated, the occasion merits a greater involvement. Come."

--

The route they walked this time took them across the island again, and up several levels, until at last they stood in a round antechamber. When they passed through the next door, they found themselves in starlight. They stood just outside a massive stone wall, blank and featureless except for a large gate. A grassy field ran back from their feet to a low forest. Vitala led them purposefully to the gate.

Beyond, a long, wide, roofless concourse led them to another gate, then into an expansive area paved with some kind of stone-and-mortar amalgam. Here, vessels of some kind or another were parked. Adric and Naomi had digested enough science fiction in their lives to know them for what they were: aircraft, and in some instances, spacecraft. Most were small, and likely held only a few people—_units_, Nova corrected herself—but a few were larger, like small seafaring vessels. Yet more wonders, she mused, but they would have to wait until sometime in the future before she had a chance to become familiar with them.

Another gate led them past what could only be a power plant. The unmistakable hum of machinery, coupled with danger signs—clearly for the benefit of any Gamma that should manage to stray this far—told them everything they needed to know; however, should such deduction fail, Vitala supplied a running commentary. While Megaman, she told them, typically ran on fusion cells (class three and up), or rechargeable cells (classes four and five), the facilities themselves ran on crystal refractor energy. Refractors were large artificial crystals much like the miniature ones used by the Betas as currency (_Zen_, Nova's mind supplied), but with some interesting properties; most notably, if they were rotated at high speeds, they emitted a surprisingly powerful energy field that could be bent to any number of applications. The plant, she explained, housed twenty large refractors, which could meet the needs of even a huge facility like Kattelox.

Another gate took them into an enclosed field. Here, silence reigned; no other units were anywhere to be seen, though the rest of the facility was bustling. A massive metal column, ringed with red designs like eyes, dominated the field. Without breaking stride, Vitala led them to a door in the side of the column.

Before entering, she paused. "This is the Main Gate of Kattelox Island. Beyond this door is the administrative center, the heart of the island. When you enter, two Administrative units, fourth class, will greet you. They are assistants to Megaman Juno; they will convey you to him. From there, you will be directed to your new assignments." She stepped back, and bowed to them again. "It has been a pleasure to assist you. Now, I must return to my duties, and you must attend your briefing. May you have success in all you do." With that, she turned and strode off toward the gate in the wall by which they had come.

Now, for the first time since the accident, they were alone together. Naomi turned toward Tracer and looked at him, squinting at him in the dim light, until she remembered that her eyes could enhance her vision. With the light intensified, she could see that he was looking back at her in just the same way. "Adric?" she ventured. "Are you…alright?"

He grinned, a rueful look on his familiar face. "Alright?" Abruptly, his helmet liquefied and vanished down his back, into its compressed-storage receptacle. His unruly brown hair ruffled in the gentle breeze. "If I can do that, then by definition I'm not alright. Far from it." He smiled at her then, though, and she knew he wasn't serious. "But I do feel good, though. And it looks like you do too. I was…I was worried about you. I thought maybe you—well, that you didn't make it."

"It's mutual," she said. "I guess Bridge didn't exactly prepare us for what this was going to be like."

"No." He glanced around; to be sure that no one was nearby. "Listen, Naomi, we have to talk, and I think we have to be quick about it." He cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. "We don't know what we're facing her, but one thing is for sure—this isn't like our world. I mean, how could it be? Most of them are—"

"Machines," she interrupted. "I know. And that means that they don't marry, I suppose. So what you really want to say is that our lives are never going to be the same again. Right?" It was the same line of thought she had been pursuing ever since awakening from stasis.

He stared at her for a moment. "That's why I love you," he said at last. "You see straight to the heart of things. So, where do we go from here? I can't just let you go, but I have a feeling that it's going to be something like that."

Naomi could feel the seconds ticking away. Sooner or later, if they didn't go into the Main Gate, someone would come looking for them. They had to say what needed to be said before then, or…well, leaving it unsaid was not an option. "I don't want that either. But we can't live together as husband and wife, either."

He was silent a moment. "We have to be two people," he said at last, in a more solemn voice than she had ever heard from him.

She frowned at him. "We already are two people."

"Each. We have to each be two people." He watched her frown deepen, then fade as comprehension came to her. "On the surface, every day, we have to be Megaman Tracer and Megaman Nova. That means we put ourselves into this, one hundred percent. Like it or not, this"—he indicated their armor—"is us now. And we have to try to do what Bridge wants us to do, even though the opportunity might be a long time coming. That's the surface of it." He reached out and stroked her face with his fingertips—a simple gesture, so much simpler that what they had shared before, but it brought tears to her eyes just the same. "Underneath, inside, we'll still be Adric Tharen and Naomi Tharen. If we see each other, or talk to each other, we'll know. And if—somehow—we can win Bridge's little war, and survive, we'll be together again."

"You make it sound so pleasant," she murmured. "_If_ we survive." Then, unexpectedly, she threw her arms around him and pulled his mouth down to hers. "That's for unfinished business between you and me, Adric," she said when she finally released him. "And…don't forget that I love you."

"I love you, too, Naomi."

There was nothing more they could say in the time left to them. So, with a last handclasp, they turned and, together, walked into the Main Gate.

--

The Administrative units were humanoid, but with no legs. To be precise, they didn't need legs; they hovered two feet off the floor, as opposed to walking. Having the focused, but somewhat limited, mental capacity that seemed to be characteristic of all fourth-class units, their speech was brusque and businesslike; they gave out information freely, but did not make conversation. They escorted the two Purifiers down a long, steeply spiraling passage that seemed as though it would descend into the depths of Hell itself; Nova began to expect the sight of demons cavorting in the doorways and alcoves they passed. When Tracer asked why there was no elevator in such a deep installation, the Administrator at his right arm explained that it was a defensive feature.

It began to make sense as they descended. The passage was a spiral, but it was not circular; rather it was squared. Any invading force would have to fight its way past a long series of corners, around which defenders could set up ambush; as well, there were the doorways, all of which sat back in recessed alcoves that provided even more defensive positions. When descending, the alcoves were located at the bottom of each leg of the passage, and at a right angle to it, so that the alcove faced down the next stretch. Therefore, it provided cover to anyone defending, but none to any attacker who should capture that location. As well, the length of the passage meant that any number of defenders would be in place; also, the leadership at the bottom of the shaft would have sufficient time to mount any defense they wished. All in all, it was a good design.

It made sense, then, that the Administrators would hover. Without the impediment posed by normal walking, they could navigate this area much faster, despite the lack of an elevator. Nova was beginning to wish for the ability to hover herself, by the time the reached the bottom—not that her body was tired, but that the monotony was becoming unbearable. Corridor after glowing, whitened corridor…

The abruptness of the stop startled them. A final corner put them face-to-face with a massive door, larger than any of the gates in the surface walls. "This is your destination," the Administrator to Nova's left intoned. "Here you will be seen by Megaman Juno, this island's administrator. Please wait here; the door will open when he is ready to admit you." With that, the Administrator units turned and zipped back up the corridor, much faster than they had come down.

After a minute of waiting, the doors opened, and they found themselves walking through a series of passages that turned back on themselves again and again—another defensive feature, Tracer mused aloud. At last they came to a final door. This door, too, opened, admitting them into a large, circular chamber that blazed with white light. Directly opposite the door, against the far wall, stood an enormous monitor and console; halfway between, in the middle of the floor, stood Megaman Juno.

He was by far the largest, and the strangest, Megaman they had seen yet. His body was a single white column of metal with a wide, pedestal-like base; on his chest were traceries of large, circular symbols. Atop this body, looking perfectly incongruous, was a human head—android, no doubt, but no less human in appearance. Admittedly, its hair was purple, but humans had done stranger things. They feature that made him most otherworldly, however, were his arms; they were like jointed, smaller versions of his body, with large hands, but they were not attached. Rather, they hovered to each side of his body, which also hovered.

Juno glided across the floor toward them as they started in his direction. "Greetings, Megaman Tracer and Megaman Nova," he said, and stopped in front of them. His voice was mellow and androgynous, keyed to a muted pitch that could easily lull someone to sleep, were that person a normal human. "I have been informed regarding your successful activation. It gives me pleasure to know that you were not harmed in the process. Mechanization is contrary to the nature of human biology, and the process of making it compatible is not gentle. Despite our rigid screening practices in regard to the Gamma humans, some of those chosen for mechanization do not survive the process. Others survive, but are…let us say, broken, in the process. Those unfortunates must be euthanized, as they will never again lead any kind of productive life." He paused. " As you have survived, I do not say these things to give you fear, but rather, to make you aware of the great happiness I have in seeing you here. I think of you and all others like you as graduates, ready to face the world." He beamed at them, but said no more.

Juno appeared to be waiting for a response, so Tracer stepped forward. His mind raced, trying to come up with something to say that wouldn't be suspicious. "We appreciate your directness and honesty, Megaman Juno. We also feel privileged to be in a position to serve the System."

"As do we all," Juno replied. "I should tell you that, among us, there is no need to regularly use the formal title. In my case, 'Juno' will be sufficient. We are all aware of what we are," he added, unaware of the irony of his words for Tracer and Nova. "In our service, we are equals, despite our class levels and capabilities. Therefore we can address each other as such."

"Very well…Juno," Nova said, "we were told that we would be receiving our placement assignments from you?" Something in the back of her mind cautioned her to be careful with this one. She made her voice the slightest bit servile, as though Juno were in fact superior to her, but too polite to mention it. It wasn't a great stretch; Juno _was_ superior as long as they were on Kattelox Island. The Administrator might be a third class unit, but he had far more experience than both Purifiers combined, and the authority to back it up. For all Tracer or Nova knew, Juno could have been thousands of years old. Regardless of all of that, however, there was something wrong about him, if only faintly so.

"Indeed. And we must not delay. Mother One and Mother Two will not be pleased if we do not consult them soon. They take great pride in every new Purifier, because your kind come along so rarely. After all, you witness aberrancy in all its forms, time and time again. Why should you ever become aberrant yourselves, and thus need to be replaced?"

Juno turned and glided to the console at the far wall, glancing over his shoulder only to beckon them to follow. They watched as he activated a control on the panel, then spoke aloud. "This is Megaman Juno, Bureaucratic Model Third Class, Administrator of Kattelox Island, requesting conference communication with Mother One and Mother Two, regarding placement of Purifier Units First Class Alpha, designations Megaman Tracer and Megaman Nova, activated this date."

A soft, feminine voice issued from somewhere unseen. "Acknowledged. Request for communication will be forwarded with priority status. Please await engagement." There was a pause, and then the voice continued. "Engagement confirmed. Mother One and Mother Two in attendance. Welcome, Megaman Juno."

Juno was silent then for a long time—so long, in fact, that Nova began to think they had been found out. Clearly he was in communication with someone—the mysterious Mothers, she presumed—though she could not detect any means by which the communication was being conducted. She felt her anxiety returning. What if, despite all their efforts, they had said something too out of character for a Megaman? Or, had their discussion outside the Main Gate been observed, or recorded? Was Juno reporting suspicions about them, or was he receiving reports about them from elsewhere?

She surprised herself then, as she found herself running a diagnostic on her armor and weapons, even though she had never used them before. Instinct turned to concrete thought, as she made her decision: if they were found out, she would not go quietly. She would fight her way out, if she could; and she knew Adric would do the same. Beyond that…well, it was anyone's guess where they would go, or how they would live, but she would not lie down for whatever punishment the System handed down. A Purifier was supposed to be the best of the best—she would put that theory to trial, if she had to.

She was spared that crisis when Juno turned back to them. "It is complete," he announced. "You are aware, of course, that during your training, you were tested as to your capabilities. Mother One and Mother Two are very impressed with your test results. Each of you demonstrated mental abilities in excess of the normal range, as well as a supremely well-developed bond with your enhancements, layered over superb physical condition in your human physiology. All of this, in addition to excellent armor grafting, has made you Purifiers of great desirability." He smiled at that. "I find this to be pleasing, as well, as you may imagine."

"As well," he continued, "it was observed during your grafting that the two of you have developed a rapport—not uncommon among crèche-mates"—Naomi nodded to herself at her correct guess—"who then endure the grafting together. As a consequence, you have done what no other units have ever done: you have caused dissension between the Mother Units."

Concern must have showed on their faces, because Juno frowned. "Do not be alarmed. It is not serious—it is simply that each of them wishes to receive both of you for their own facilities. They could not agree on that point. Therefore"—he paused theatrically—"they have decided to each claim one of you."

It took Nova a moment to realize what he was saying—then her mind reeled. _Separated?_ She didn't know where these Mother Units were, but surely, from what Juno was saying, they were in separate places.

"I am sorry to see you go your separate ways," Juno said. "Often a rapport such as yours will enhance the abilities of the units involved; it is not at all uncommon for you to be assigned as partners. But the will of the Mother Units is final, and they have chosen." He smiled again; this time, it looked more like a feral leer. "Do not worry; you will be well received in your assignments."

A glance at Tracer told her that he was thinking the same things. She tried to listen to Juno's words, but the thoughts in her head were racing too fast. She felt suddenly more lost than before—it was as if she had been handed a flashlight in the dark, only to have the batteries go dead. _Separated? No!_ The words repeated over and over in her mind.

"—Shuttles will be arriving shortly to retrieve you," Juno was saying. "Tracer, you have been assigned to serve Mother One, Yuna, at the capital city of Elysia. It is our only true city, and you will be quite comfortable there. As Yuna is my immediate superior, I can say that she is adept at her tasks; you will find your work to be rewarding."

He turned to Nova. "Nova, you have been assigned to Elysium. I realize that this is not discussed in your training, for we do not wish to give the Gammas aspirations that they will not be able to fulfill. Elysium is our great station in orbit, the second moon, which is the home of the Masters whom we exist to serve. It is the domain of Mother Two, known as Sera. You will also be well accepted there."

"How long do we have before we leave?" Tracer said, breaking a long silence. Nova could tell he was making a supreme effort to control his voice.

"A matter of hours. When your shuttles arrive, you will depart." He glided backward a few feet. "I will reiterate my pleasure at your arrival among us. May you have success in all that you do," he said, repeating Vitala's words. "Please wait here; my assistants will return to escort you to a waiting area. Goodbye." He turned and exited through a side door that they hadn't noticed before.

They turned to face each other. "Ad…Trigger," Nova said, trepidation in her voice, "there's so much I want to say to you. I just…I never realized this would happen. Maybe it would have been better if we _had _died in the procedure, or…before." She made the effort to be circumspect, knowing that the control room was probably monitored.

In reply, he lifted his hand, palm toward her. She mirrored the gesture, and pressed her palm to his, then twined her fingers in his. At the same time, each of them retracted the gauntlets on those hands, so that they were skin against skin again. "I have so much to say, too," Tracer said. "I promise you, I'll find a way to keep in contact. We will."

"I know." They stood that way, in silence for a moment, until the door opened and the assistants came to escort them out.

--

Four hours later, Nova sat in the seat of a bulb-shaped shuttlepod, gazing out the porthole as the Earth—or Terra, as she had learned that the Megamen called it—fell away beneath her, and the sky faded from blue to black. Through an angled porthole in the panel above her, she could see a white form growing large—amorphous now, but taking on detail all the time—and she knew it must be Elysium. She had learned from the Servitor unit in control of the pod that Elysium contained thousands of units, as well as the Masters, the three Alpha humans of whom Bridge had once spoken. None of it had any effect on the ice she felt in her heart.

Thousands of units or none at all, it didn't matter—she was more alone than she had ever been in her life.


	5. Aberration

FIVE YEARS LATER Disclaimer: This disclaimer thing is getting old. Capcom owns it all, I only own the things that don't appear in any Capcom game, namely, certain characters and ideas. Just read—you'll see which ones. This is Chapter 5, and we finally see some action here! Maybe not much, but, hey, anything is an improvement. Please read and review! Megaman Legends

The Traitor

Chapter Five: Aberration

FIVE YEARS LATER

He stood in the doorway of the shuttle, two thousand feet above the ground. The gravitation cells in the soles of his boots kept him anchored in the open hatch, despite the high winds that buffeted the shuttle. Just as the distant sun spread its morning pool of gold over the streets of the city below him, he released the grav-lock, leaned forward into the wind—and plunged.

Air roared in his ears. He flashed down, headfirst, a blue missile. At twelve hundred feet, the blast shield snapped down over his face—wouldn't do to have the Betas see any humanity. Better to be an enigma, a rumor of something otherworldly.

At one thousand feet, his left hand vanished into a shaft of deadly, blue metal. A high-pitched whine joined the roar as he charged his weapon.

At six hundred feet, twenty-five feet above the building toward which he was falling, he reactivated the grav-cells at full strength. He was instantly wrenched upright, to fall feet-first.

One second before impact, he reversed the gravity field and cut its strength back. He struck the angled roof on his feet and slid down as if on ice skates, buoyed up by the reversed field. Ten feet before the lip of the roof, he shifted the field to add thrust, and launched himself into a somersault that carried him far out into the nearby plaza.

A last, long drop carried him to the ground. He hit it running. His approach had not been unnoticed; a squad of five of the island's police, fresh on duty for the morning, was running to intercept him. He switched to stun without thinking, and laid them out on the ground from a hundred yards away.

No other resistance met him, though there was screaming as other Betas noticed what was happening. "Second team, go," he said into his comm as he ran. An instant later, he heard a series of thumps as the first team, the Security team, landed behind him. There were three units on the first team, all second-class Purifiers; in this operation, they would hold the perimeter while he dealt with the aberrant unit. The second team, now on the descent, was the Beta-relations team, three third-class Liaisons with the appearance of humans; they would gather all the Betas affected by this operation, and blank out their memories of the time. The System, after all, had to ensure its own secrecy.

The third team, the Recovery team, would not come down until the threat was neutralized. If the body of the aberrant were not destroyed during the operation, the three Technicians on the Recovery team would recover what they could, preserve it, and deliver it to the analysis teams at Elysia. Those teams would then tear it apart in a usually vain search for the cause of the aberrancy.

Tracer didn't care what they found, as long as it never happened to him. He had a job to do, and he was good at it.

Running through the still-dusky alleys and back streets, he spotted his destination: a dilapidated, rusting, metal shed, wedged between two buildings. He stopped at the door as his team pounded up behind him; they immediately spun around and formed a defensive arc around him. No Betas were in evidence, but if any of them appeared, the Security team would stun them and flag the Beta team. No harm would be done, except for the bumps and bruises the Betas took when they fell. Tracer had seen Purifiers who killed Betas, and he knew the dim view the System took of that—he himself had had to terminate a Purifier who had taken a liking to it. In the eyes of the System, the Betas were like children, to be protected and nurtured; after all, they were the ones who really ran the world, while the Megamen were only its managers.

He turned his attention to the shed. It was not a Beta construction; it was a service entrance to Garlock Island's facility, used when the facility was excavated and sealed ever since. Since the entrance was not expected to be needed again, the Betas had been allowed—in the subtle way that such things were done—to build their city around it; they couldn't get in, anyway. No Beta ever gained admission to any facility; they thought the entrances were the ruins of some long-dead civilization. Tracer knew how to open it, though.

He switched his right hand gauntlet over to a superheated cutting laser, and began to burn away the section of metal—indistinguishable to the naked eye from any other—that covered the locking mechanism. Truthfully, the main entrance—outside town—would normally be easier. Not this time; the unit that had gone aberrant was a Security model, second-class, the head of the local security detail, and he had secured the doors with a randomizing lock code. Once he was neutralized, Tracer could assume his duties and release the lock, but first they had to get in. Hence, the service entrance, which predated the Security unit and was listed as disabled.

Ten seconds of laser fire had the electronic lockplate exposed. The laser reverted to a normal right gauntlet, then retracted to expose his first two fingers. He held them out straight, and a whip-thin, six-inch spike—a neuroprobe—extruded from beneath each fingernail. In the dim light, they gleamed like long claws. He inserted them into two tiny receptor slots in the lockplate.

Tracer's mind turned inward then. He cast his thoughts along the neuroprobes and into the circuitry of the lock, searching for the disable codes. When he found them, he reversed them, and the lock sprang to life. Returning to himself, he heard a click, then a series of hollow scraping noises as long-unused bolts ground open; the door slid aside with a sickly groan, and the team was inside.

The lights in this sector were out, but that was no barrier to their enhanced senses. Tracer left one Purifier at the top of the ladder, then motioned one down into the shaft. He followed close behind, weapon at the ready, and then the third Purifier brought up the rear.

As they ran through tunnels that grew steadily brighter, Tracer studied the internal map that the Dispatch unit had uploaded. On the map, the Nerve Center—the facility's main control room—flashed a sinister red, indicating that the aberrant was there. That was where they typically went to hole up, if they did hole up; they could do considerably more damage there. The local security had established a perimeter around the Nerve Center, covering all the exits; Tracer knew that that was all he could expect from them, considering that the aberrant was their commander. Without him, they would be confused and random in their actions, and only a higher local authority would be able to galvanize them. Although he could take temporary command of the facility, he wasn't ready to step on the administrator's toes—figuratively speaking, as an Administrator unit didn't have toes—just yet.

When he reached the last junction, he found himself facing a heavy blast door. Corridors stretched off to the right and left in a gentle curve, sweeping around the circular room; the passage from which he had come was directly behind him, forming a T with the cross-corridor. Two third-class security units, inhuman in aspect and supported by a tripod of legs, guarded the door.

"Status?" he barked at the two units. At the same time, he scanned left and right until he found what he was looking for: two alcoves, one in each side tunnel, that were designed to accommodate units in defense of the Nerve Center.

"No change to report, sir," the unit on the left responded. "Megaman Tricord is inside the Nerve Center. This facility remains on secure lockdown. No one has entered or left the Nerve Center since the lockdown was initiated, five hours and thirty-six minutes ago. We are holding the perimeter around the Nerve Center, as discussed in earlier communication."

"Excellent." He turned to the Purifier to his rear left, and motioned him toward the left alcove. The unit hurried to take that position. Tracer turned to the squad member on his right. "Take control."

The unit nodded. "This is Megaman Terceptan, Purifier Unit Second-Class," he said, addressing the facility's command net. "Priority reroute of all security command functions to this unit, effective immediately. This unit assumes jurisdiction over all security protocols for the district Garlock Island, pending termination of aberrant unit Megaman Tricord, Security Unit Second Class. All jurisdictional authority subject to oversight by the district Administrator. This unit will petition regional administration for relief after successful restoration of security status." He hesitated a beat, then continued. "Release security lock status on Nerve Center only. Maintain security lockdown for all other areas." He turned and ran to take a position at the alcove on the right.

Tracer turned back to the security units. "Stay out of the line of fire, but hold your positions. We'll have him in a crossfire here if he tries to run." Without waiting for an answer, he turned and strode to the Nerve Center door, which opened to his touch.

--

In the five years since his activation, Tracer had learned many things. For instance, he had learned early on that, yes, the Gammas were pretrained to become Megamen—trained since the day they were, well, born, for lack of a better word. The fact that he had blended as well as he had without that training was fortuitous, almost miraculous. He had learned, as well, that the net effect of that training was to remove many human passions; they felt them, but they managed them like tools. One such passion was fear.

He felt a very human twinge of fear now, though, as he entered the Nerve Center. On most missions, local security could be relied upon for a second line of defense; that would allow him to have his own team in the room with him, outflanking the aberrant unit. With the head of security being the aberrant unit, however, he couldn't trust the security force to do their jobs reliably; they were like children without an adult to direct them. it left him no choice but to redirect his own people in order to ensure that Tricord didn't slip past him and escape, which in turn left him to face the aberrant on his own.

Tracer had learned something else, as well: that Purifiers were made to get the job done.

The door whirred shut behind him, and he strode to the center of the floor. Consoles and monitors surrounded this Nerve Center; there was going to be a phenomenal amount of damage in this room in very short order. "Terceptan," he said over the comm, "transfer all functions from the Nerve Center to the secondary posts throughout the facility. I expect enough collateral damage to keep the reconstruction squads busy."

He missed the acknowledgement, because at that moment, Megaman Tricord—crouched over a console on the left of the circular room—noticed him, and opened fire. Plasma bursts pelted the wall behind Tracer.

Tracer hurled himself to the right in a low somersault that brought him up with his own weapon trained on Tricord. Plasma tore into the Security unit. Sparks flew, but the aberrant gathered himself and sprang straight up into the air on his trio of legs. All three tipped toward him, and cannon ports opened in the bottoms of the unit's feet. At the same time, gravity cells lit up at the waist level of Tricord's cylindrical torso, and his legs began to rotate around their common center. Suddenly, Tricord was airborne, and much more dangerous. On cue, all three cannon ports opened up, raining plasma on him.

Tracer took a hit, then two more, the plasma chewing holes in his armor that sealed themselves instantly, but with a corresponding toll in power. His power levels were prodigious, but if they dropped too low, his armor would become stiff, and he would move slower, making him an easier target. He dodged and rolled, seeking escape from the tornado of plasma that followed him. As he evaded, console after console was blown to shrapnel.

This situation had definitely gone downhill fast. Tracer briefly considered retreating to the corridor, drawing Tricord into the inevitable crossfire, but at the moment, even that was untenable, as the Security unit flew around the room like an angry hornet. So, he continued the dance, weaving and leaping, firing back when he could, waiting for an opportunity. There always was one, he reminded himself—he only had to wait.

--

Terceptan was sure this mission would be over in a heartbeat. Even without his team to back him up, Megaman Tracer had never lost a battle. It was entirely possible that Tracer would purposely herd the wayward unit into their crossfire, just to make the termination as sure as possible. It had happened before, if not often—

Movement caught his eye. The two security units had left their stations by the door and were moving across to the third hallway, the shaft of the "T", the one by which the Purifiers had entered. That was strange; the new positions put them straight in the line of fire. What were they thinking? "Units!" he called out over the sound of plasma fire from within the Nerve Center. "Return to your posts!"

Uh-oh. He had taken over control; for all practical purposes, he _was_ the head of security; they should have obeyed. The fact that they didn't obey could only mean one thing—

"Aberration!" Segundan, his partner, yelled, a split second before plasma fire hit them like hail, forcing them back into the shelter of the alcoves.

How had everything gone so suddenly wrong?

--

Tracer's opportunity came. He tucked into a forward roll that carried him through a pile of debris just as Tricord buzzed overhead, and found himself on his feet behind the Security unit. Two running steps and a leap, and he hurtled through the air, then slammed against Tricord's back. His weight bore the smaller unit to the ground.

Tricord struggled to escape, but Tracer held him fast with his right arm. With his left, he retracted his cannon and struck the unit at a vital spot, just at the base of the neck. He pounded the unit until sparks flew and the light faded from its grav-cells; then he released it. Cautiously, he backed away.

--

"Commander!" Terceptan shouted into his comm. "Do not, I repeat, do not attempt crossfire! We are under attack by indigenous security forces!" He ducked around the corner and briefly returned fire, then jerked back as plasma nearly took off his arm. "We cannot, repeat, cannot give assistance at this time! Further aberration detected among the security force. Attempting to neutralize at this time!"

Urgently, he sent another call, this time to Primenda, the Purifier guarding the service entrance. Now, if only they could hold out—and if the rest of the security force was not already aberrant—they might still make it out.

--

Tracer lowered his weapon, and was just about to call the Recovery team when Terceptan's call came in. He sent an acknowledgement, and glanced back toward the door.

Metal scratched on metal, and Tracer whipped back around. In the blink of an eye, the Security unit finished its transformation into its battle form. Now it leaped at him on four powerful legs, howling like the wolf it so resembled, oversized red eyes blazing hate at him. It struck him full in the chest, bowling him over, slashing at him with spiked paws. He turned the fall into a tumble and threw the beast off over his own head, then came up shooting as his wounds closed.

Unheeding of its own wounds, the beast leaped again. Tracer brought his right hand up, morphing it into the cutting laser even as he fell away to his left. The hot beam sheared off the beast's forward, right leg at the shoulder, and the aberrant hit the floor hard. Before its repair systems could take effect, Tracer drove the beam like a blade into its right eye. The beast howled and jerked away, causing more damage as the laser sheared free of its head.

Tracer knew that the security unit was equipped with a second battle form, one less agile, but with heavier firepower. If it was allowed to transform again, it might recover, and his team needed him. He switched back to cannon mode and drove the power up to maximum, then poured hot energy down on the fallen machine. It writhed on the floor as its metal skin slagged and peeled away; Tracer kept the punishment on. After a few seconds, it stopped fighting back as its neural network melted. When the fire reached its processing core, the light went out of its one remaining eye, and it died.

--

The walls of the corridor were hot and pitted, and the corner of the alcove was threatening to give under the constant storm of energy. Terceptan leaned around, going low, and fired off another blast.

The enemy fire stopped abruptly. Terceptan looked around to see the further security unit—the one firing at him—twisting in a crackling web of electricity. Another stun grenade exploded against its armor, driving it out into the cross-corridor and sending it to the floor. Terceptan leaped into the pasage, his right arm morphing into a new configuration—a mine launcher. He fired a half-dozen of the heavy explosive projectiles onto the floor near the downed unit, where they clung for a few seconds before exploding, vaporizing the unit. The blast must have downed the second unit, as well, because Segundan leaped from his own cover in a flurry of plasma bursts that reduced it to smoldering ruins.

Primenda came toward them around the last turn of the approaching passage, weapons still at the ready. "Is that it?" she called out. "Where is the rest of the security force?"

"All security units, stand down, and enact temporary stasis," Terceptan said. "Network, please confirm."

After a pause, the network answered, in a smooth feminine voice. "Confirmed. All security units report confirmation of order. Internal sensors report stasis mode on all security units. Units await retrieval and reactivation by medical personnel."

"Retrieve, but do not reactivate. Await retrieval by analysis teams from Elysia." He looked to his teammates. "We should help the commander. I believe he was having difficulty inside."

The door to the Nerve Center slid open, saving them the trouble of deciding. Tracer stood there, winded, but uninjured. "Is everyone intact?" At their affirmatives, he nodded. "Good. Target neutralized. What happened here?"

"The guards on this door became aberrant," Terceptan stated. "I have never seen anything like it. It was as if something came over them suddenly, and they left their posts to attack us." He paused. "I took the liberty of calling Primenda away from her post."

"You did the right thing." He scanned the damage to the corridor. "Now the question is, what would cause three units at one time to become aberrant? I've never heard of such a thing. Aberrants are always individuals."

"Perhaps more importantly," Primenda interjected, "did we get them all? If three of them were aberrant, there could be more."

"Possible," Terceptan said, "and yet the rest of the force did go into stasis when I ordered it. Aberrants have never been known for obedience to orders."

"True," Tracer replied. "Still, let's assume that, one way or another, the threat is neutralized. How it happened is for the analysis teams to figure out. Speaking of which, Terceptan, as soon as you can get to the secondary comm station, you can call them with our initial report. Request an additional reconstruction team, as well—they have their work cut out for them in there." He gestured back into the Nerve Center, where it appeared that not a single piece of equipment was undamaged.

"I suppose, Commander, that we will be staying?" Segundan said. "I can't see us leaving the facility without security."

"Correct. Since Terceptan already has jurisdiction, he will remain here to supervise, and the two of you will provide the necessary security detail until the retrieval and reconstruction are complete. I will arrange a replacement detail to relieve you as soon as the reconstruction teams pull out." He gazed down at the fallen remains of the security unit, the one lucky enough not to be vaporized. "This makes me uneasy. Call the Recovery Team and get them mobilized. I want to go check on the Beta Team."

He strode off down the left corridor, not waiting to see if his team carried out his orders. They always did; he knew that much, at least, because he had their respect.

Having seen the impossible today, he hoped their respect would be enough.

--

As Tracer strode away from his team, his armor melted away, vanishing into its socket in his shoulder. Fully compressed, it was about the size of the smallest joint of his little finger; he never even felt it when it was in that state. The retracting armor revealed a whisper-thin, form-fitting jumpsuit, complete with moccasins that hardened on the soles so that his feet were not bare. The simple garment was perfectly acceptable within the System; among the Betas, it would have been a red flag that something was not right. Hence, his next stop.

Every facility that was on a populated island served as the true governing agency of that island, no matter what other purpose the facility might have. The Betas had their authorities—governors, magistrates, mayors, there were any number of names—but always, always, the top leaders among the Betas were aware of, and commanded by, the System. The facility would have at least one Ambassador unit, second or third class, and several Liaison units, who would deal with the Beta authorities. Sometimes it was necessary for those units to move among the Betas undetected; in fact, some of the units would be assigned to live among the Betas, monitoring their activities. Those units were also responsible for acquiring clothing and other accoutrements for the facility, so that units on assignment would fit in with the current Beta trends.

Thus, Tracer headed for the Ambassador's office, in search of clothing. His Beta team members already had theirs; it was normal for them to be among the Betas, so they came prepared. Usually, however, Tracer left them to their work, so he was not so equipped.

A third-class Liaison named Median met him at the door, and escorted him to the dressing area. He kept the conversation to a minimum; he couldn't stop thinking about the oddity of the three aberrants in one place. Units didn't cause other units to go aberrant, nor did aberrants gather in one place. It was too unlikely for coincidence, and yet it had to be. Again, he tried to shrug it off, and failed.

Ten minutes later, he was climbing out the shaft of the service entrance, clad in jeans, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes—much the same as he would have worn when…no. He pushed that thought away, back into the Fortress.

When he walked among the Betas, it was always harder to keep the Fortress locked. They stirred memories in him, and feelings, that were better left buried, if only because those memories could still harm his cause, even after all these years. At the same time, it felt good to mingle with them, good in a way that no other unit would ever understand. _Well, none but one…_ That was a thought that he pushed even further into the Fortress, and slammed the door on it.

The alley fronting the service entrance was deserted; no one saw him slip out, although he could see that the nearest streets were crowded with Betas. By this time, they would be agitated and restless, but none of them would know why; the Beta team was very good at memory elimination.

He found the first squad member standing under the awning of a building entrance—it was the building he had used to make his landing, he noted—apparently having a conversation with one of the Beta policemen Tracer had stunned. It took an observer at close range to see that the man's eyes were glazed over, and to see that the Liaison unit was doing all the talking—in both voices, no less. Tracer listened with amusement to the patter about the incident; to hear the conversation, it sounded like the man had been abducted by space aliens, and just had to tell someone about it. It was all for show, to cover the short fugue the man experienced while the memory-wiping drugs took effect. There was, after all, no truly reliable way to modify memories; the best that could be done was to eliminate the incriminating time span from the Beta's memory.

When it was finished, the man stumbled off into the crowd, feeling disoriented. Tracer stepped under the awning. "Status?"

"Slow progress," stated the Liaison unit, whose name was Megaman Amicus. "Only fifteen Betas were in direct observation of our operations. However, several were able to tell their story before we were able to reach them. We have determined that the total number of Betas affected by this engagement is forty-seven, which includes a television reporter and her camera crew who did, in fact collect video footage of you and the security team. Megaman Ceptus has gone to intercept her and her crew; he will retrieve the footage in addition to modifying their memories. Megaman Carida and I have succeeded in modifying the original fifteen, as well as two of the secondary witnesses; thirty secondary witnesses remain, including the news crew. However, the secondary witnesses are proving elusive."

Tracer nearly cursed aloud before he caught himself. Megamen didn't curse, if for no other reason than that they were always cool and collected. "Then you will have to stay here until the task is completed. I will take the shuttle back to Elysia and make the reports. When the recovery and reconstruction are complete, you will rendezvous with the first and second teams and take the carrier back to Elysia, then report for debriefing."

"Understood. I will relay your orders to Ceptus and Carida." When Tracer didn't continue, Amicus paused. "Sir? Is there something else?"

Briefly, Tracer considered not telling him. Who knew what the implications were of this new situation? Still, word would get out soon enough anyway; the units stationed at Garlock Island would talk, even if his own team didn't. "There is…a discrepancy," he said. "That is the only way I can think of to describe it. We have not one, but three aberrant units, all in close proximity. As well, there may be more, among the security detail."

"Three?" Amicus frowned, his calm demeanor cracking for a moment. "Commander, that is not possible. Aberrant units do not relate to each other, nor do they appear together."

"It seems they are learning new tricks. At any rate, it has me concerned. Have you seen or heard anything that would indicate that the Betas have been adversely affected?" It was a circular way of asking, do the Betas know anything?

"Nothing, Sir. This matter appears to have been maintained internally, except, of course, for our missing witnesses."

"Indeed. Then I will let you continue your work, but I would like you to be on alert for any such activity. I want to be notified immediately should you find anything." At a nod from Amicus, he turned and strode off into the sunlight.

--

For the better part of an hour, Tracer wandered the streets, mingling with the Betas. He kept his ears open for any word that would indicate that the Betas were aware of the aberrant units, but nothing came to his attention. It only made sense that they would be unaware; the units had never left the facility—sometimes they did, and wasn't _that_ a colosssal load of fun?—but he still wanted to be sure. Since this seemed to be strange new territory, it was entirely possible that they had been aberrant before they were detected, and that they had come to the surface unsuspected.

Still, it seemed that everything was in good order. During his wandering, he found two more of the missing secondary witnesses, and flagged them for the Beta team. One of them, seated at an outdoor café, was writing furiously in a journal about what he had heard; not having any memory drugs, Tracer briefly considered stunning him. But that would require a return to his armor, obviously impossible here; instead, Tracer waited for him to finish, then lifted the journal from the man's coat pocket where it hung on the back of his chair. It wouldn't pay to have any written records, any more than it would pay to have video footage.

At last he gave up on his inspection, and turned his attention to the Betas themselves and their city. He strolled through the open-air plaza at the heart of town, browsing at shops and stands, sampling the wares of the vendors—the Liaison units had supplied him with pocket change, a small pouch of low-denomination zen—listening to music from a band at the grandstand. Time passed, and for a while, it was as though he was a Beta himself. He nodded to people who nodded at him, and spoke when he was spoken to, and shook hands when hands were offered. The speech of the System, with its stilted formality, slipped from his tongue, and the casual slang of the Betas took its place. If anyone noticed that his expressions were a few years out of date, no one mentioned it.

It made him feel at home in a way he never did inside the System; but there was something else, as well—a sense of loss, nameless and vague, that nagged at him. He felt disjointed somehow, and that was a feeling he also felt within the System. It was as though he was strung between the worlds, without a true identity in either one—but why he would feel that way, Tracer had no idea.

Garlock was not a large island, but it was something of a financial hub, and it had several office towers like the one he had used to make his entrance. Those towers were casting shadows on the plaza when he at last made his way back to the service entrance. He locked the door as he entered, and made a mental note to arrange for a Technician to come and seal up the lock panel. The metal would need to be aged, so that it would appear seamless with the surroinding metal; otherwise some Beta might notice and start prying.

Inside the facility, he found Terceptan supervising the Recovery team as they collected and catalogued the security detail. There was little left of the two aberrants from the corridor, but the body of Megaman Tricord, fused forever into its battle mode, was neatly arranged in the floor of the security office, awaiting pickup by the carrier that was even now en route from Elysia. The Recovery team would wait for the carrier; ordinarily, the fallen aberrant could be transported on the team's shuttle, but the large number of units to be transported made the carrier a necessity. The Beta and Security teams already had missions that would hold them here for some time, but none of it required Tracer's direct oversight, so he would have the shuttle to himself on his way home.

After issuing some final orders, he made his way to the Administrator's quarters, which were serving as a temporary Nerve Center. As he knew it would be, his briefing was received with a mixture of irritation, concern, and impatience, all cleverly disguised by calm dispassion. Clearly the Administrator unit wanted rid of the team, but failing that, it would settle for getting rid of Tracer. In short order, Tracer made his exit.

The main entrance let him out in the hills outside the city, so he was able to call the shuttle to the ground. It was long and low, tapering toward the front, where it terminated in two long mandibles that contained sensors and weapons—although he had yet to see a situation that required weapons to be fired from any vehicle. There was a drophatch slung low in each side; he had used the port hatch in his own drop. The boarding hatch was located in the back, and that was where he entered now.

The stern of the craft held a small cargo area where recovered aberrants were usually stored, and a restraint area for the unlikely circumstance that an aberrant was taken alive. There was a recharge point for any lower-class unit that should be along for the mission, and a miniature laboratory that could handle most basic analyses. Tracer made his way past all of this, to the crew area. Here there were nine acceleration chairs with harnesses, arranged in rows of three between the two drophatches. To the extreme forward there were pilot and copilot chairs, fronting on a bank of controls and a large viewport.

In the pilot's seat, Tracer quickly ran his preflight checks; then he sat for a few minutes, composing his thoughts. There was one more task to be completed before he departed, and it was the hardest of all—he had to make his report to Yuna, Mother One. It was difficult because communication with her was accomplished by a Mindscan, which was much more like telepathy than any other kind of electronic communication. He was an Alpha unit, and that meant that he could hide any thoughts he didn't want seen; his emotional state, however, was fair game. Anything that was out of character for a Megaman would raise suspicion in Yuna's ever-so-perceptive mind.

At last, composed and collected, he reached out with his mind. Lower-class units had to contact Elysia by more standard means and request that the Mother unit make contact. First-class units were more gifted; they could reach out to the Mother units directly, mind-to-mind, and request Mindscan contact. The Mother unit still controlled the exchange—she couldn't be drawn into the Mindscan against her will—but the contact could be made anytime, anyplace, assuming that the sending unit wasn't in critical condition or stasis.

His perception seemed to split, then, into two levels. The lower level—he thought of it as "autopilot"—paid attention to the details around him, the shuttle, and its controls. The upper level, his true attention, was focused inside, on the Mindscan. At that level, he found himself in a dark, seemingly limitless space, standing inside a runelike circle of light. At a distance from him—five feet? Fifty feet? There was no telling—Yuna stood in a similar circle of light.

Units called her "Mother," but her body was that of a dark-skinned, wide-eyed child. She had long hair, gathered into two thick pigtails that were an incongruously luminescent blue. She wore a short, maroon tunic, hemmed in yellow and banded around the neck with symbols that, he knew, represented the five classes unit in the System. The childishness was only an appearance, however; hers was easily the strongest, most capable, and most human mind in the System, equalled only by her sister Sera, Mother Two. As always, her eyes bored into him as if searching the very depths of his soul—which, had he been an android, they would have been.

She had been Tracer's immediate superior for five years.

"Tracer," Yuna said. "Already I have begun to hear that something out of the ordinary has happened. Your request for a carrier and an extra Reconstruction team is unusual, to say the least. I hope that all is well?"

"My team and I are undamaged," he replied. "There is extensive damage to the Nerve Center of the Garlock facility, which necessitates the additional Reconstruction Technicians. As to the carrier, I was forced to leave my team behind for the time being." Efficiently, he filled her in on the high number of witnesses, the multiple aberrations, and the removal of the remaining security detail.

Yuna was silent for a long time after he finished. Finally she spoke. "Your decision to leave your team on station was correct. I fully expect that we will find more potential aberrants among the security detail, just as you have postulated. I will say that I find this situation most disturbing, as there is clearly established logic that dictates that aberrant units do not congregate, nor do they spawn other aberrant units. This bears further examination, as I will see to when your team returns with the physical evidence." Her face was set in a grim frown; suddenly Tracer had the feeling that Yuna knew more than she was saying. "Are you returning now?"

He nodded. "As soon as we break contact. I have concluded all the necessary contacts here, and the team is in place as needed."

"Good. When you arrive, you will have a six-hour rest period; then I would like to see you at the Mother Zone for debriefing. I need time to consult with Sera regarding this development."

"I acknowledge." He paused, then gave a frown of his own. "Mother, I have to ask…what do you think this means? Are we facing a new type of aberration?"

"I do not know, Tracer. I will form an opinion, but much remains to be learned. I am not one to give much credence to my feelings, but…I will say that this does not sit well with me at all." She shrugged, a curiously elderly gesture on that child's frame. "Fly safely, Tracer. I will see you when you arrive."

"Always a pleasure to serve, Mother." He nodded, and then he felt the Mindscan release him. His perceptions clapped together, leaving him momentarily disoriented in the pilot's seat.

More uneasy than ever, he took the controls and lifted off. At thirty thousand feet, with Garlock Island a green blur beneath him, he set course for Elysia.

--

When humans reconstructed the world in the ashes of its last war, there were few safe havens to be found. The men and women who would later become the Alpha humans—the Masters—were few in number, but they had already conceived their grand plan to populate the world with the Betas and the Megamen. The plan included provisions to extend their own lives, as well, an act that they knew would forever set them apart from their subjects. The System would be the buffer between the Betas and the Alphas, and the Betas would never know it.

In those days, Elysium, the great fortress in the sky, had not even been conceived in the mind of the Master, the leader of the Alphas. Instead, they created Elysia, meant to be their heaven on Earth, a place where they could live without risk of dying from exposure outside their life-sustaining systems. It was a city, their only city, and in it they could walk free under the sky. For centuries, they did just that, while the newly created Betas worked to restore Terra to pristine condition, and while Elysium itself—a Heaven in the heavens, as they imagined—was constructed. In those days, Yuna ran the System alone from her tower at the heart of the city, and was simply called Mother; it was only when Elysium was complete, and Sera was created to rule it, that Yuna became Mother One. Sera, being the younger and the weaker—though not the subordinate—was called Mother Two.

Eventually, the Alphas had left the world behind, retiring to their home in space. Elysia remained, however, in part as an administrative center for the facilities of Terra, and in part against the possibility that the Masters would someday need to return. Also against that possibility, the city was filled with Megamen of every description, some of whom served functions in the complex administrative apparatus, but most of whom simply existed to live there in lieu of the original residents. There were Megamen who simulated nearly every common profession in the old human world, from artists to musicians to construction specialists to chefs, and so on. Should the Masters ever return—an unlikely prospect, now that only three of them were left—the Megamen would immediately move into the service roles for which they had been created, attending to the Masters' every need and desire. In the meantime, they served each other—especially the Alpha units, who retained some of their human physical needs, such as food, albeit in limited scope—or else they simply lived.

All of this was lost on Tracer, as on most units, because they did not know the true history of the world. The Masters, for whatever reason, felt that it was best if even their prize creations did not know the truth. Rather than give them a false history, as was done with the Betas at each reinitialization, they simply left the topic untouched. For most units it was a nonissue. For Tracer, because he had been taught the false history, he wondered; but there were always more pressing issues to which to attend.

Like the briefing that now faced him.

He made a smooth approach to Elysia just as the sun set; Coralin Island, on which the city was situated, was several hours west of Garlock at shuttle speeds, meaning that while it was the middle of the night there, it was only evening here. It was his favorite time to approach the island; another break with the man he had been, who had loved the sunrise…he pushed that thought away, back into the Fortress where it belonged. With the briefing ahead, he couldn't afford to have that gate open even a crack.

Frowning, he stared out at the city and the ocean as he made his descent. Red-gold flames on the water…_No!_ he thought with more vehemence than he intended, and purposefully turned his thoughts away.

The city was coming alive with light as he set the shuttle down in its berth at the Purifier barracks. The barracks were situated in a high building, with its docking levels on the roof, so he was afforded a spectacular view of the bright streets and structures below him. Finally, when the last light of the sun was gone and only the city's own lights remained, he locked up the shuttle and headed down.

He meant to go straight to his quarters, but restlessness wouldn't allow it. Instead, he exited at ground level and headed into the crowd in the street. He spared only a single glance for the massive tower, higher than any other, that loomed beside the barracks—the Mother Zone, where Yuna awaited his briefing. Perhaps she was even now in communion with Sera, Mother Two, aboard Elysium.

The Megamen were more human than Tracer had first imagined—well, the higher-level units, anyway. They talked and laughed and cried and dreamed, just as humans did; it was simply that they were utilitarian and efficient, even then. Though they could never escape being something other than human, they strove to emulate their Masters as best they could, even while performing the functions for which they were made. So, like humans, they ate and drank and slept, to varying degrees; the Alpha units even required those things, though they could suspend those needs for a long time. They danced and sang and worked, as their personalities led them. It was a curious mixture to Tracer—the stark, singleminded purposefulness that he had seen on Kattelox at his awakening, and the life and light that he saw every time he returned to Elysia.

It wasn't unusual, then, that Tracer had his favorite restaurants and other haunts (although perhaps restaurant was a misnomer--no establishment in Elysia ever sold anything, but rather, dispensed its wares freely; there was no money or economy within the System). He headed for one now, seven blocks away from the barracks. Along the way, he met friends and acquaintances, who one by one hailed him, failed to get a response, and wondered at his state of mind.

In the restaurant, he sat down to a dinner of fish (no surprise in a world of islands) and steamed vegetables. Still lost in his thoughts, he didn't notice when another unit slid into the opposite bench.

"Well, Tracer," the other said, breaking Tracer's reverie, "it's good to see that you survived another encounter. What was it this time? An aberrant class-five worker? Did it attack you with its scrubbing attachment? Oh, your life is one of such danger and mystique!"

Tracer broke into a smile despite himself. "Korrin, it's good to see you, too. And it's good to know that your high opinion of my duty is still as untarnished as ever." Korrin was a Musician unit, one of the wide variety of professions that had been created simply to satisfy the aesthetic tastes of the Masters; now, he played and sang in a recital hall down the street for the benefit of his fellow Megamen. "Why don't you come along next time and see for yourself?"

"I don't associate with workers, my friend, even dangerous ones." Korrin sat back, his long blue tunic flowing around him as he did. His features were far closer to true human than most units, even to the point of sporting a chestnut beard; Tracer remembered being shocked by that the first time he saw it—facial hair was nearly unknown among Megamen. He had to remind himself frequently that Musicians, Artists, and most other units at Elysia had been created to make the Masters feel more at home; therefore they were near-perfect facsimiles of humans. That resemblance extended not only to their bodies, but also to their personalities, their affectations, and their passions. In hindsight, Tracer had realized that it was only natural that he should feel at ease with Korrin and others like him.

"You never know until you try," Tracer replied, lifting his glass. He noted that Korrin had brought his own. "What brings you here tonight?"

"Well," Korrin said, raising his own glass, "I find myself drawn to this establishment for their fine food and even finer wines, despite the fact that this is my two thousand, seven hundred and eighty-second meal here. My compliments to the chef!" He took a long pull from the glass, holding it by the stem. "As for my presence at your table…that would be you, my fine, battle-worn friend. I sense by your demeanor that you are troubled about something, which is an emotion I am not accustomed to seeing on you. Oh, you can look grim when you want to—which is most of the time, even though you sit with an expert at good moods. But you are more serious tonight than I can ever recall you."

"I suppose I am," Tracer admitted. "This mission was out of the ordinary. I suppose it has me concerned—troubled, as you put it."

Korrin leaned forward, elbows on the white linen tablecloth. "How so? Surely an aberrant was not too much for the great Megaman Tracer?" It was said without a hint of irony, and the sarcasm was friendly.

Tracer sighed. 'You know, I'm not at liberty to say. I know that sounds strange, but this particular case isn't closed yet."

Korrin frowned. "So the aberrant lives?"

"No, we finished him. Poor soul. But there's more going on this time, and I don't know what it is yet. I have a briefing in a few hours with Mother One, so maybe she knows something more than I do. I'd like to think so, anyway."

"She usually does know more than has been let on. The Master certainly knew what he was doing when he created her." Korrin studied his friend, radiating concern. "There is more, I think."

"You think correctly." Tracer fell silent, then, for a long time, while Korrin sat back and draped an arm over the back of his bench. Finally Tracer spoke again. "Korrin, you are perhaps the most philosophical Megaman I have encountered since my activation. I know you have a lot of years behind you, as well, so don't try to lie about it. Do you ever…question who you are?"

"Sometimes." The answer surprised Tracer by its immediacy. "I do indeed question myself. We all do, those of us who are of a level to have the capacity. Only the aberrants do not question themselves."

"That's an interesting way of looking at it," Tracer said, considering it. "We usually define aberrancy by its actions. Any unit that engages in actions that are detrimental to the System or its parts is by definition an aberrant. But you're suggesting something different."

"Not so different, really." He waved a hand in the air to punctuate his meaning. "Aberrancy is what you say it is. But what causes it? I think that, for whatever reason, a unit loses its ability to question itself. To evaluate its own thoughts and actions. It then persists in a line of thought that is erroneous, but it cannot see clearly enough to perceive the lie. And who knows how long this can go on before we detect it?" He spread his hands in an anyone's-guess gesture. "By the time it translates into action—"

"—The damage is done, and it's too late," Tracer finished. "That's where I come in and do the job, which you steadfastly refuse to acknowledge as the magic it is."

"And you do it so well. So, then, my friend, I take it you are questioning yourself even now?"

_More than you can know,_ Tracer thought. Aloud he said, "I've just…seen some things that make me question my place in the world."

Korrin grinned. "A little self-doubt cannot hurt, my friend. We may be machines—well, some of us are machines—but that does not diminish our personhood, if you will. And anyone who claims to be a person must sometimes examine the person they are. The fact that we were created, and created for a purpose, should never stop us from examining our lives for validity."

"That does, in fact, make sense. I don't think it should, but it does." He lifted his glass to his lips again, then paused. "How did you become such a philosopher?"

"I was programmed for it. But I exceed myself." He grinned again. "Isn't that what everyone wants? To exceed themselves?"

Tracer had to agree.

--

The Mother Zone of Terra was enormous. Tracer had never been inside the Mother Zone of Elysium, although he had been to the station on consulting assignments once or twice; consequently he had nothing with which to compare. The Mother Zone of Terra was a high tower, fifteen hundred feet or more, that dwarfed all the structures around it. It was wide at the bottom, then tapered in steps to a height of nine hundred feet, where it became a smooth silver shaft barely sixty feet wide. That shaft rose for another four hundred feet before terminating in a broad disk, two hundred feet thick and covered in crenellations, lines, and symbols that resembled eyes, but represented all the types of units in the System. It sat in the heart of a broad plaza at the center of Elysia, cast all in silver that shone like a beacon in the sunlight.

There was no sunlight at four in the morning as Tracer crossed a filigreed silver bridge a hundred feet above the ground, strung between the Purifier barracks and the lower levels of the Mother Zone. He knew the situation was serious when Gatz, Yuna's blue-haired, dark-skinned Servitor unit, met him at the entrance. Tracer's impression of him was of a ten-year-old boy, not only for his physical appearance, but also for his constant state of earnestness; it was deceptive, however, because Tracer knew him to be very capable. Gatz led him through a maze of corridors and into an elevator in the heart of the Zone. The elevator discharged them just outside the Zone's Nerve Center; and before he had time to think, he was ushered into Yuna's presence.

She wasn't alone. Sera—tinier than even Yuna, with pale skin, close-cropped blond hair, and large doe eyes—was there as well; or at least, her holographic image was there. Tracer had only met her on a few occasions; she usually kept herself and her business strictly within Elysium.

"Welcome, Tracer," Yuna said when she saw him. "Enter, and be at ease. Gatz, you may leave us for now." Gatz bowed and exited, and the door closed behind him. Tracer heard the soft hiss of the privacy seal powering up.

"Mother, I may enter, but ease eludes me tonight," Tracer said diplomatically as he moved toward the two Mother units.

"Then perhaps we can set your mind at ease to some small degree," Sera said. "Your actions have not been called into question in any way. Your service, as always, was exemplary yesterday, as was that of your team. We have received their reports, incidentally. Their work is thorough as always."

"They make me proud," Tracer said. "I was sorry to make them stay, as I always am in such times."

"They are already en route back to Elysia," Yuna said. "I took the initiative of having Megaman Radius"—another Purifier of Tracer's acquintance—"ferry a new Security detail to Garlock in his shuttle almost immediately after you made your initial report. I Mindscanned each unit personally to ensure that they were trustworthy. Radius is five hours out from Elysia now, transporting your team. I do not wish for you to be out of action while your team is on station."

Tracer allowed himself a small smile. "That is good news. But I do not believe that it is the pressing issue for which you summoned me…?"

"Astute as always, though lacking in patience," Sera remarked to Yuna. Sarcasm? From a Mother Unit?

"Indeed," Yuna agreed—whether with Tracer or with Sera was anyone's guess. "Tracer, we have been discussing the issue of the multiple aberrations you found. You will be unhappy, I am sure, to know that you were correct—initial analysis reveals aberrant positronic patterns in the brains of three more units on the security detail."

"This is most unusual, of course," Sera said. "History demonstrates, as we all know, that aberration is a solitary phenomenon. Aberrants do not tend to gather in one place, chiefly because their state of mind is self-serving. They do not work well together. Nor do aberrants cause other units to become aberrant. Aberration, after all, is not a disease but a defect. This is so certain as to constitute a law among us, much like a law of physics or motion."

"The Law of Aberration," Tracer acknowledged. "Every Purifier knows it—counts on it in battle."

"Then," Yuna continued, "you will be further dismayed to know that your mission yesterday is not the first occasion on which we have seen this phenomenon."

"It is the fifth," Sera said, her voice flat.

--

Tracer was too stunned for words. Five? Five incidents of multiple aberrations? How had it happened? More to the point, how had he not heard? Units gossiped as much as Betas did. "How did this happen?" he finally managed.

"These incidents have occurred over the past three months," Yuna said. "In every incident, the circumstances were similar. Anywhere from three to seven units, all working in close proximity to each other, all becoming aberrnt at the same time. In every assistance call, there was only one aberrant as presented, but the others revealed themselves during the battle. No great casualties have been taken among the Purifiers assigned or the non-aberrant units in the area; nevertheless we are greatly concerned."

Sera spoke up. "Tracer, concerned is too weak a word. This is unimaginable. What this represents for the System, we can only begin to think. Yet we would like your thoughts on the matter, as you have witnessed them first-hand in action."

Tracer recovered quickly from his initial shock. "I have been giving it much thought myself, Mother. I think it is too early to draw any conclusions, but I think that one thing is obvious: there are no coincidences."

He saw that they concurred, and so he continued. "Therefore I can make only three hypotheses. First, that something has changed within the units themselves. This is only plausible if there is some great connection among the aberrant units beyond just proximity of service. Second, that something has changed within the aberrations themselves, much as a disease among humans may mutate—but as you said, aberration is not a disease but a defect."

"Third—the theory that I found most likely, and most disturbing—is that someone is causing this."

The words seemed to settle over them like a shroud. Finally Yuna spoke. "Although it is not a thought that we wish to acknowledge, we are in agreement with your assessment. Of course, it is only the most vague of hypotheses, and it therefore bears further investigation. But the very fact that you have reached this conclusion so swiftly tells me that we are correct in our assessment of you."

"Of me, Mother?" Tracer's eyes shifted from Yuna to Sera and back. "I don't understand."

"You have been through an ordeal of sorts," Yuna picked up. "Therefore we will not keep you any longer. I will get to my point, Tracer: We have a new assignment for you." She paused a beat. "We are placing you in charge of the investigation into this issue. Use any means you find necessary, but find out what is causing these aberrations. We ask only that you keep this knowledge out of the general unit populace; we have taken great pains to do so until this time."

"Your service record speaks for itself," Sera added. "You are supremely qualified for this role. You have a flawless termination record, and your abilities have been nearly unmatched since your activation. Your mind is both quick and thorough, and you already have exposure to this situation. There is no one better suited for the responsibility. We trust," she added, "that you will carry it out in excellent fashion."

"We will give you everything you need," Yuna said. "You will have access to any unit, any systems, and any data that you request. All doors will be open to you, in the confidence that you will accomplish what we ask. What do you say?"

It didn't matter; there was nothing to say. For once, Tracer was speechless.


	6. Revelation

Author's Note: No more disclaimers

Author's Note: No more disclaimers. Enough already. Everything previously stated applies to this and all further chapters. For future reference, see chapter one. Author's Notes are a little better—at least here I can notify you about any changes. In this case, go back and re-read the previous chapters—they've been further edited and reposted. Hope you've enjoyed so far! My postings are actually gaining some regularity, so let's hope it stays that way. Please review! Timewalkerauthor

Megaman Legends

The Traitor

Chapter Six: Revelation

THREE MONTHS LATER

The shuttlepod drifted toward Elysium in a lazy arc. Sunlight glinted off its gunmetal-grey hull, flashing over the portholes in its northern stem. The pod was bulbous; its lower two-thirds were a large sphere that was half equipment, half passenger compartment. The upper third was a neck that held the entrance hatch in its side. Landing struts surrounded the neck, pointing upward; when the pod docked at Elysium, the sphere would be outside the docking bay's hull, while the neck would rise up through one of the bay's round docking ports to discharge the passengers inside.

The aforementioned passengers, in this case, were six third-class Servitor units—three Alpha models and three androids—recently assigned to Elysium after a brief stay at Elysia. They passed their trip in silence; there was nothing to be said. The pod's Pilot unit had linked his mind with the pod's systems for ease of control; his attention was elsewhere, leaving the passengers to themselves. No one saw the strange intensity, almost a fever in their eyes.

--

Tracer knew it was bad the minute he got the call. A high-level unit had gone aberrant, with at least ten subordinates also succumbing—the highest number he had seen in his three months on this case. The very fact that the Dispatch units knew in advance that there were multiple aberrants was another first, and it gave him a dread that chilled him.

He was already running for his shuttle when he called the team to action. His thoughts raced, whirling around these new developments, but even more so around his destination. The location of this disturbance could not possibly be a good thing.

The distress call came from Calbania Island.

--

The pod unloaded its passengers into the cargo bay, where a fourth-class Worker configured in the shape of a six-legged insect met them. The unit's intelligence was prodigious where its work was concerned, but limited with regard to interpersonal relations, since it could hardly be called a person itself. It noticed nothing strange about the new units, although they were nearly quivering with barely-contained energy. The bay controllers, seated in a booth at one end of the bay, were third class and humanoid; they might have noticed, had they had the chance. They never did; the Worker led the six Servitors toward a lift platform at the opposite end.

--

Tracer pushed the shuttle harder than he had ever pushed it. Calbania was southeast of Elysia, and a long ride—seven hours, even by the shuttle's considerable speeds. The team read his stony silence and held their own peace; no one needed to say anything. They knew it was serious. A counter in one of the monitors kept a tally of the reported aberrants on Calbania.

As they watched, the counter ticked up to fourteen.

--

The Worker left the Servitor units in one of the medical labs, where they were scheduled for evaluation and specialization, when they would be given new enhancement modules for the jobs to which they were assigned.

They waited patiently while the Medical Assistance units buzzed and hummed over them, probing their bodies with various instruments.

When the Medical units came in—three of them—one of the Servitors stood up. A Medical unit opened a new panel in the wall and brought up a neuroscanning device, to check the integrity of the Servitors' minds and neural networks. Unnoticed, the Servitor walked to the door and activated the security seal.

As one, the Servitor units leaped to their feet and began to transform. A medical assistance unit looked up at the sound, and cried out a warning. By the time the other Medical and Assistance units turned, it was too late; the Servitors were in combat mode, in the forms of quadripedal birds-of-prey with ten-foot wingspans, cast all in crimson. They opened fire.

--

The shuttle screamed into Calbania an hour ahead of schedule. Tracer brought it down hard just outside the main entrance of the facility; the Security team was already scrambling out the drophatches. He was only a step behind.

The doors were sealed, but Terceptan reversed the lock codes with ease. Then they were inside, riding an elevator down a long shaft into darkness. They exited on the adminitrative level, and the team was running.

Primenda and Segundan peeled off at a cross-corridor, following directions relayed by the facility's network to take them to some of the lesser aberrants. Tracer and Terceptan bore straight for the Nerve Center, where the leader waited. They hit the first line of resistance almost immediately; an aberrant Liaison unit, in combat form, sniped at them from an open doorway. It never stood a chance; it vanished in a veritable hail of cannon fire. Terceptan cleared the room beyond, and then took up the chase again.

--

Every impulse screamed at them to run, to hunt, to strike closer to their goal. The Servitors made themselves walk. The slaughter in the medical lab had been sealed away before the alarm could be sounded, though it wouldn't be long before it was discovered; for now, though, nonchalance was their weapon, as they sought not to draw attention. Casually they made their way toward their goal.

Three minutes later, the alarm began to sound. The units broke into a run.

--

Every Purifier on Elysium snapped to full attention at once as the alarm blared. Orders from the Network were shouted over their comm units as armor flashed into place. From all quarters, there was a veritable stampede as Purifiers raced toward the disturbance.

--

"We have a problem, Sir!" Terceptan shouted over the noise of gunfire as they took on another aberrant—the fifth so far. "The Network is offline! We can't access the facility systems." He ducked behind a corner, away from another blast.

"Or take control," Tracer added, releasing a blast of fire from his own cannon. "We'll have to do this the hard way! Once we recapture the Nerve Center, we can try to reopen the Network and take control of the facility." He grimaced as another shot clipped his left shoulder. He shifted his right gauntlet into a wide-mouthed grenade launcher and fired a round at the far wall of the corridor, where it ricocheted. It came to a stop under the feet of the aberrant Liaison unit, half a second before it exploded.

The unit survived the blast, but lay crippled on the floor, unable to rise. Terceptan finished it with a blaze of plasma. "Go!" Tracer shouted, already on the move himself.

--

Megaman Nova raced down the winding corridors of the Defense Area, the shell that surrounded the large central core of Elysium. She dispatched her subordinates at defensible points along the way, hearing other squad leaders on the comm doing the same, but hardly pausing. She rounded a corner and passed a cross-corridor—

—And an alloy heel struck her jaw, sending her sprawling. Six dark forms blurred past her, heading the same direction she was going. She was firing before she was on her feet, but her shots went wild.

Tearing after them, she shouted into the comm, "Full alert! All units to Corridor 32, Section 8! Visual contact established, six targets—they are heading for the Living Quarters! Repeat, they are heading for the Living Quarters!"

--

Tracer and Terceptan skidded to a halt as a security barrier slammed shut in front of them. For the first time, Tracer felt a hint of dismay—without the Network, there was no way for him to open the gate. "We'll have to find a way around. The maintenance crawlways have access in the last section, if we aren't sealed off from there." A burst of fire from behind them sent them scattering.

Tracer found himself huddled in a recharge alcove in the left wall. Terceptan had better cover, behind an information console, but he was pinned down by fire from—Tracer saw with dismay—three Technician units in combat mode. On the other hand, there was a clear lane through the middle of the units; and they weren't firing on Tracer. He made his decision. "Terceptan! I'm going to break for the crawlways! When I break through them, stay and mop up, then give me backup!"

Terceptan scowled at him. "Sir, I don't think you should go alone. Let's finish this, then go together!"

"Negative! The other security gates could be closing even now. There's no time!"

"Sir, I—"

"You have your order, Terceptan!" With that, he lobbed a grenade into the corridor, and then leapt after it. The blast staggered him, but it scattered the units. He kept going, leaving Terceptan in a flurry of counterfire.

--

Cannon fire blazed up and down the short leg of the corridor where the Servitors had entrenched themselves. Though the Purifiers were better armed, and though they outnumbered their foes, the Servitors had the advantage of a better defensive position. Now, four of them, in combat mode once again, rained fire on the Purifiers, who took cover and returned fire as best they could.

The other two, still in humanoid form, had vanished around the corner, but Nova knew what they were doing. Ten meters down that route lay a lift that would take them to the Center Area, also called the Living Quarters—and though the lift was locked down, Nova was sure they had only minutes before the Servitors reactivated it. Once it took them up into the Center Area, they would no doubt lock it down again, or worse, jam it.

"All units, explosives, on my mark!" she yelled over the noise. All around her, gauntlets shifted into grenade and mine launchers, and blast shields clicked into place. The collateral damage here would be impressive, but it was nothing beside the cost if the aberrants reached the Living Quarters. She released her own weapons, preparing to grapple with the units. "Mark!"

Fifteen Purifiers launched as one, then hit the floor. The explosion was massive, whiting out Nova's vision for a moment despite the blast shield; it actually shoved her back, although she was gripping the floor with her grav-cells at full. There was no question that the four Servitors were dust. With the blast still ringing in her ears, she threw herself around the curve…

…Just in time to see the lift rising into the ceiling. Without thinking, she leaped at it, and reversed her grav-cells at full power. The burst of repulsion slammed her against the bottom of the lift in an upside-down sprawl, and she reversed the cells again. Suddenly she was hanging by her feet from the bottom of the lift. She rode it up into darkness.

--

Tracer came out of the crawlways a hundred feet from the entrance of the Nerve Center. Strangely, there were no guards in sight. He started toward the doors.

"Commander!" Tracer spun around to see Terceptan running toward him from a side corridor. "Wait!"

Tracer studied him as he came up. "How did you get here?"

"It was strange," Terceptan said. "When I finished off the aberrants, the security gate retracted. I thought that perhaps you had done it, but I could not raise you on the comm. Unfortunately I encountered more aberrants along the way, or I would have been waiting for you." He flicked his eyes toward the unguarded door. "That is also strange, do you not think?"

"Very. I do not know how many aberrants Primenda and Segundan have encountered. However, I have encountered fifteen, and your recent encounters will raise the number even more. Already that is half again as many as we projected, not including the unit in the Nerve Center. I would think that they would post guards here, of all places."

"It is what we would do, were we defending this position," Terceptan said. "Quite possibly the aberrants do not reason in the same way as we do. Since we were assigned to this…situation…we have yet to recover a live specimen for examination."

Tracer knew he was correct; the security units taken from the first operation, at Garlock Island, had self-terminated immediately upon being awakened from stasis. All other live captures had done likewise; most had done so on site. He put that out of his mind; however, and focused inward for a moment, on his internal maps. "We are past all the security gates," he said. "Terceptan, I want you to guard the entrance while I go inside."

"No!" Terceptan burst out, with more emotion than Tracer had ever seen him display. "Sir, I have to protest! It is dangerous enough to face this without the rest of the team. I cannot let you go in alone!"

"Terceptan!" Tracer cut him off. "Think! The only logical explanation for this door having no guards is that this is a trap. If we go in there, who is going to stop the remaining aberrants from coming in behind us? That is what I see when I look at this. I need you to guard the door and stop anyone who approaches! Do you understand?"

"I—" For a moment, Tracer was sure he heard him grinding his teeth. "Sir, I have never disobeyed you, and until today I have never questioned your orders. But I am a first-class unit, as well, with more experience than you, despite your service record." It was true; Terceptan had been in service for twenty-seven years. "I know you are more skilled than I am. That is one of the reasons you are the primary unit, and I am your partner. Yet, I was once offered my own team, and turned it down. All of this is common knowledge." He took a deep breath, calming himself. "I only say these things to demonstrate to you that my suggestions have merit. Please, do not face this aberrant alone! Have you not commented yourself on how different this operation is? See reason, sir!"

Tracer studied Terceptan's face for a moment. Fear was written there, another thing Tracer had never seen before. "Terceptan," he said, "I have never once doubted your knowledge, your skills, or your perceptions. There is no one I trust more. But I want you to trust me this time. Remain here and do as I ask. If I am not out in ten minutes, you can come in. And keep your communicator open, in case I call. Is that acceptable?"

Terceptan appeared to fight with himself a moment longer. Finally he nodded. "I will do what you say. Be careful, sir."

With a nod, Tracer turned and strode toward the Nerve Center.

--

Nova swung her arm free just in time to avoid the eighteen-inch-thick disk of metal that fell away into the void of the lift shaft. She released her cutting laser, morphing her right arm back to gauntlet mode. At the same moment, the lift thumped to a halt, as white light poured through the hole she had made. She swung her upper body forward and grabbed the lip of the hole with both hands, then released her grav-cells, letting her legs dangle. With both arms, she launched herself upward through the hole into a high somersault.

She landed ten feet away from the lift, weapon at the ready. She saw at once that one of the Servitors was fused with the control panel of the lift, using its own systems to override the security protocols. She blasted the Servitor into a smoking ruin; there was no time to extract it, not with the other one on the loose, especially here. The Network would be able to re-establish access soon, but for the moment, she was on her own.

The Center Area was arranged into many small islands, built in a grid formation over an artificial sea. Artificial sunlight, warm and cheerful, lit the place like noon. Each island held a small dwelling, where a Master had once lived. Most were empty now; only three of the Masters, who had originally numbered nearly ten thousand, still remained. Each island also had a gate at each of its compass points, a gate that would teleport an individual to the next island in the chosen direction. In this way, travel among the islands was accomplished, although Nova knew it could be laborious.

There were usually units in the Living Quarters, but Purifiers were not among them as a general rule. The Masters had left all conflict behind millennia ago, so the sight of units created for battle was generally considered detrimental to their ethereal peace. The units here would be artists, musicians, and the like—all cannon fodder for the remaining Servitor. Worse yet, the Masters themselves were undefended, and Nova had no doubt that they were the primary targets. She was now officially the only line of defense.

She saw a flash of white light as the Servitor vanished into the northern teleport gate. She ran after it, praying she wouldn't be too late.

--

The door closed behind Tracer with a quiet hiss. A first glance around the Nerve Center made him frown in surprise and concern; most aberrants took refuge in the Nerve Center of the facility—it was why most of them, unlike Garlock Island, were built to withstand a lot of abuse—but most of them left it pristine; the damage came in the battle that followed. The Calbania Nerve Center was already in shambles; and the aberrant unit that was responsible now stood in the center of the floor, his back to Tracer, shaking with barely-restrained energy.

He turned when Tracer stepped toward him. "Megaman Tracer. I have been hoping it would be you that would respond to this call," Bridge said.

--

Terceptan had marked off one minute and twelve seconds on his counter, when he heard the bolts slamming into place in the door behind him. Too late, he turned, and saw the red light of the security seal glowing beside the door.

--

"Bridge," Tracer said cautiously. He kept his weapon low, but ready. "I never thought I would see the day when you became aberrant."

Bridge uttered a short, dry laugh. "If the truth is known, Tracer, I have always been aberrant by definition. You know this, of course, because you are also aberrant, from the very moment of your activation. Or has my dream failed?"

"It hasn't failed," Tracer said. "Though I can see why you might think so. I haven't done much yet to further that dream, I admit. The moment hasn't come, Bridge, but I see now why you and your…patron…have taken this stand."

"That is well, then. Of course, even if you fail, there is still another, who is even closer to the goal than you. How is your wife, these days?"

Tracer's gaze grew dark. "I have no wife. I am a Megaman, for better or worse. We do not marry."

"Then I will take it that you do not know how she is. Oh, I know about your separation, and that it was quite against your will. Still, I imagine that you made some promise to each other to keep contact, or something to the effect. I can see now that you were not able to do so—nor was she." He paused. "Again, this may be for the best. While you are on Terra, you may be able to acquire the keys that are required for access to the Library on Elysium. And while she is there, she may be able to secure such access. Only time will tell."

"Enough about that," Tracer interrupted. "You said you were glad that I responded. Why?"

There was an audible click from behind Tracer, and he turned to see a red security light beside the door. "There. I have sealed the door so that we shall have privacy for a few minutes. Then you will destroy me. I have labored long and hard to ensure this outcome, and it was not simple. I will not have your lieutenant interrupt us before our talk is concluded."

"The only thing I want to talk about with you is why you became aberrant," Tracer said. He lifted his cannon an inch.

"That is exactly what I wish to tell you, though you cannot imagine the pain it is costing me to do so. You can see the destruction I have wrought in this room, in the course of battling with myself for the fortitude to talk to you. The obstacles are great."

"So talk," Tracer said. "What is going on here?"

Bridge drew in a deep breath, then exhaled. Tracer could hear the air rattle on the way out. "Tracer," he said, his voice sounding thin and tired, "there is a traitor among us."

--

Nova knew she would never make it in time. She was still five islands away from the center island when she saw the Servitor switch to its combat mode and take flight. It continued to use the gates—the islands were too far apart for direct flight to be faster—but it could fly faster than she could run, and it gained ground between gates. Frustrated, she shouted over the comm. "Megaman Nova to any units in the vicinity of the Masters! Priority alert! Suspend all activities and secure the Masters inside the nearest residence. Secure all doors until priority alert is rescinded! Imminent threat on approach. Repeat, imminent threat on approach!"

--

"What do you mean, a traitor?" Tracer said. He had begun to circle warily, moving slowly around Bridge without taking his eyes off the Ambassador unit. Bridge turned with him, but made no move to approach; however, his obvious distress grew steadily stronger, and his shaking increased.

"The Traitor," Bridge said; Adric could hear the capital letter—"is among us. He is the unit behind all of the multiple aberrancies, of which I am sure you are aware." He broke off and let out a cry of agony, his eyes wild. "I…have to…fight…No!" He shook his head as if to empty it. "He has conditioned me against telling these things, as he has done with all of his…let us call them conscripts, for they have been pressed into his service. It is painful to speak of these things. I am only able to do so because I have become skilled at dividing my thoughts, as have you."

"Who is it?" Tracer said. "Can you tell me that? And how has he done it?"

Bridge shook his head again, and a said smile bloomed on his face. "I cannot tell you his name, although I know it. Nor can I identify him by indirection for you. In those areas his conditioning is at its greatest, and I cannot resist it. But I can tell you how he has done it." He grimaced. "There is a virus, an electronic virus, which he transmits to us. I have come to know that this is an ancient ploy, but it has never been known among us. He has nurtured and crafted this virus so that it is able to overwhelm even an Alpha unit such as you or me. It functions by…aah!—by overriding the basic operational programming of our neural networks. In an Alpha unit, this causes our neuroprocessors to block or redirect commands issued by the organic brain. In other words…my will is no longer my own. I cannot help it! I do not wish any harm on you, and yet soon I will be compelled to fight you."

Tracer raised his weapon, but Bridge only shook his head. "Not yet. I have a little control left in me. Tracer, listen to me. The Traitor must be stopped! He is dangerous far beyond anything you have ever faced. He is no mere aberrant."

"How? How is he different?"

"Isn't it obvious? He has _dreams_. He wants to destroy the System, but if he cannot do that, he wants to remake it in his image. No normal aberrant has any aspirations except to kill and harm as much as it can before dying. He is not like them, although his conscripts have largely been conditioned to look so."

Tracer frowned. "So, how does that make him any different from us? We want—" he stumbled; it had been a long time since he had voiced the thought that was in his mind—"We want to destroy the System, too. How is he different from us?"

"We are embarked upon a cause which will right a great wrong, and do great good for the Betas, who are the progeny of our creators. We owe it to them," Bridge stated. "He is different because there is nothing noble in him. He knows, as well, that he will never destroy the System. Therefore his true desire is to rule it. And I tell you, Tracer, that in his hands it will become a weapon of terror such as has never been known since the first humans walked Terra's surface. He may well succeed, if you do not stop him." He smiled that sad smile again. "It can only be you, Tracer. No one else has your soul. No one else knows what it is you are truly fighting for."

--

The central island was different from all the others—larger, with a more elaborate dwelling, for it was the home of the Master himself, the first among the Alpha humans. Nova had hoped that the masters were not there, that they were gathered in the home of another master, as they sometimes were; but in her heart, she knew better. Her suspicions proved correct when the Servitor took a last turn into the gate that would lead in that direction.

It was doubly bad, because not only were the masters there. The Master's residence contained a direct entrance—the back door, so to speak—to the Mother Zone. From there, if the Servitor could gain access, it was only a short trip to where Sera kept her quarters, outside the Library. Nova had no doubt that Sera could handle herself in a fight, but it was irrelevant; if the aberrant made it that far, it was because Nova had failed already.

She switched comm channels as she ran. "Megaman Nova to Mother Two!"

"Nova," Sera acknowledged. Sera had been her immediate superior for years.

""Mother, I am still in pursuit of the remaining aberrant, en route to the Master's residence. Requesting that that you seal the entrance to the Mother Zone." She skipped a beat before continuing. "Mother, I may not make it in time. If I do not, the aberrant must be contained at the residence, so I can deal with it there."

"Of course." Despite the crisis, Sera sounded as polished and cool as ever. "The residence is on lockdown, as you requested, and I am locking down the Mother Zone. Geetz"—Sera's personal Servitor—"is monitoring the seal." Sera paused. "Nova, I have no doubt that you can save this situation. I will do what I can from here, but I cannot reach the residence in time to help you. I am counting on you."

"Acknowledged. Nova out." She was already running at full speed, but somehow she found it in her to go a little faster.

--

"How do I know I can trust you?" Tracer demanded. "You're an aberrant. How can I be sure you're telling the truth? Or better yet, how do I know that you're not this traitor you mention?"

Bridge spread his arms in a shrug. "That would be self-defeating, would it not? You are about to kill me. If I were the Traitor, I would not be telling you when I am in such a precarious position. As for trusting me…there is nothing I can do to make you trust me. But I implore you to do so. Lives are at stake on a phenomenal scale.

He shook his head violently from side to side, and Tracer nearly opened fire right then. But Bridge seemed to regain control of himself, although Tracer could now see a red glow in his eyes. "Aahhh…" he groaned. "Tracer, the pain within me is considerable. I battle his programming, and I cannot succeed. But I must ask one more thing." His last word devolved into a sibilant hiss of pain, and he clamped his hands to his head. "Tracer…do not…speak of this with anyone…until you have told the Mother units. They must make this knowledge…widespread." He let out a growl. "If these words reach the Traitor—and his ears are everywhere…if he hears of it…before you disseminate this knowledge…he will see you killed…to keep his secret. Promise it, Tracer!" he yelled suddenly. "No one…not even your closest companions…until Yuna and Sera know!"

"I promise," Tracer said. "I can give you that much." It did make sense—knowledge held too close could be dangerous. So could knowledge that was given to the wrong person."

"There is one more thing you can give me," Bridge said. Suddenly all the confusion, the pain, seemed gone. "I was once a gamma human of Kattelox Island. I was never allowed a human life. My personality was held back until I was of age to become a Megaman. I would like to know what it is like for the Alphas, or for the Betas for whom we fight, but it will never be possible. I will never have that human life. But you," he looked into Tracer's eyes, "you, Megaman Tracer, once a Beta Human of Calbania Island—you can give me a human death." He raised his fists, but made no move to go to combat mode. "Put away your Megaman weapons and armor, and fight me hand to hand!" He tensed. "Destroy me, Tracer! It is your lot in life. I cannot live!" Then he leaped.

--

Nova came out of the last gate with her weapon up and her finger squeezing the trigger. There was only one place the Servitor could be, if she was not to late, and she took the shot blind—and was rewarded by a metallic impact and a cry of pain. The Servitor sprawled against the door to the Master's residence, the door it had been in the process of cutting through. As she topped the rise on which the residence stood, she was still firing, but the Servitor had taken evasive action. She saw the flash of light as it transformed to combat mode and went airborne. It cut through her cannon fire and came at her, aiming for her eyes with its forward talons. She blocked the blow, and grabbed one of its rear legs with her free right hand. With a shout, she was yanked off her feet and carried skyward.

--

Tracer hardly noticed when his armor melted away; it was not a conscious decision. He only realized what he had done when he stepped into Bridge's leap, and saw that the fist connecting with Bridge's sternum was bare. The blow was no weaker for that; Bridge flew away to sprawl on the floor. Tracer came after him.

Bridge was on his feet and swinging. Tracer blocked, once, twice, three times, then grabbed Bridge's wrist and twisted, bringing his other arm across to slam the Ambassador unit to the floor again. Bridge pushed with his feet and scissored his legs at Tracer's, breaking the hold. Tracer hopped back out of reach, then darted forward to grab Bridge's foot. He spun in place to hurl the other unit away, and Bridge crashed into the far wall.

Bridge glared at him, and his mouth worked as if he were struggling to speak. Whatever he may have said was lost, then, as rage filled his visage. He sprang at Tracer again, snarling in fury.

The attack was faster this time. Tracer found himself in a mad swirl of moves—block, block, punch, kick, block, grab, turn, hold—that seemed to go on for hours. The two units danced around the floor, Bridge attacking, Tracer falling back. Bits of wreckage crunched under their feet as they ducked, hopped, and traded blows. Blow after blow landed on Tracer—but more landed on Bridge.

--

The transformed Servitor twisted and writhed as it flew, trying to shake her off. Nova held on, knowing there would never be a better chance. She fired at the aberrant, missing more often than she hit, but dealing out damage. It screamed at her in animal rage, clawing at her arms and head with its forelimbs, but she bore it and kept firing.

At last it wavered. It wheeled and spun, and Nova felt the rush of air as gravity took over. She couldn't see where it would land, but she knew she could take the impact; she held on and kept firing. The world spun around her, and she got a glimpse of the residence, coming up fast as the Servitor made a last-ditch effort to complete its mission—then there was the boom of impact as they crashed through the door of the residence.

--

It would never end this way. Their respective repair systems would keep healing them, time and again—no mere physical attack would bring them down. Finally, Tracer took an opening and vaulted backward in a somersault that gave him a few meters of distance. Bridge ran after him, and Tracer backpedaled a few more steps, leading him; then he leaped toward Bridge and straight-kicked him, smashing his heel into Bridge's throat. Too far gone in aberrancy to suspend his metabolic functions, Bridge collapsed to the floor, gasping and choking.

Tracer stood over him, poised for more. "I'm sorry, Bridge," he said quietly. "I can maintain your dream, but I can't give you what you want." He pulled his armor around him, and brought up his cannon. "The thing that you and I have in common," he said as he took aim, "is that we had our chance at humanity. Now, we can never be only human again." He pulled the trigger, and Bridge vanished in white fire.

--

Nova picked herself out of the rubble of the doorway, and checked the scene. The aberrant wasn't moving, and no light shone in its eye; she kicked it to be sure, but it made no move. She turned her attention across the room, where the masters stood in a small circle of units. Half a dozen Musician units, second-class—all completely human in appearance—stood around the masters, taking defensive postures as best they could. By contrast, the masters stood straight, tall, and unruffled, with supernatural calm seeming to radiate from their white robes. None appeared to be harmed, although the units looked to be shaken—they had never seen any kind of disturbance before, she was sure.

No one was more composed than the Master himself. He stood in the center of the gathering, and nodded when his eyes met hers. "Megaman Nova. This is not how I would have met you, had I had a choice. Nevertheless, you have done a great service, and I thank you." His voice was mellifluous and warm, as though he had not just seen his house bombarded by a large, homicidal android. "Sera has spoken often of you. I see that you are every bit as competent as she insists. Perhaps you will talk with me while we await her, and you can make your reports to her in person—"

"Look out!" one of the musicians shouted. The units threw themselves at the masters, trying to shield them. Nova spun toward a barely-glimpsed motion behind her, cannon already firing. The dying Servitor opened its beak and fired a single, weak burst of plasma, just before Nova's blast incinerated its head. She squeezed off a second shot, reducing it to scrap.

She was already turning back to the others, the words forming on her tongue to ask if everyone was unharmed, when there was a weak cry of pain and—strangely—amazement. For a moment, time seemed frozen, as she saw that one of the masters—not the Master, and not the female, but the second male; Nova suddenly could not remember their names—stood still in the middle of the floor. His hands were slick with bright red blood, which still gushed from an enormous wound in his abdomen. "For three thousand years, I have not seen my own blood," he stated calmly. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he crumpled to the floor.

The moment broke. Instantly the room filled with screams as the Musicians—made far more in the image of humans than most units—panicked; at the same time, the remaining Masters fell to their knees beside their companion and began feeble attempts at first aid. Nova knew it was futile; they were too far removed from their mortality to retain such humble skills. For her part, she blasted the remaining hulk of the aberrant to slag, clearing the door; then she ran to help the Masters, shedding her armor and calling for medical assistance as she did.

--

Terceptan rushed the door as soon as it opened, but stopped when Tracer came out. "Sir! Are you unharmed—" He broke off as Tracer strode past him without a word. The look on Tracer's face, a thunderstorm on his features, gave Terceptan pause, and by the time he found his voice, the other unit was twenty feet down the nearest corrider. "Tracer! What happened? What is wrong?"

"Finish the operation," Tracer called over his shoulder. "You have temporary command. Mop up any last resistance, but now that the primary is dead, I think the remaining aberrants will be easy. I will wait for your preliminary reports at the shuttle." He rounded a corner, leaving Terceptan both speechless and concerned.

--

The informary inside the Mother Zone was seldom used; normally, Sera and Geetz, along with Sera's small staff, were the only occupants of the high-security Zone, and they seldom needed medical attention. The station's best and brightest Medical units and Medical Assistance units were there now, working frantically to save the life of the master who even now lay bleeding on a surgical table. Behind the working units, Nova stood with Sera, the Master, and the third Alpha, the female, watching and waiting.

"His name is Antioch," the Master said after a long silence. "In the old days, when all of this was yet to be constructed, he conceived of Elysium. He was the first among us to recognize that we were no longer as we were, and the first to realize that no place on Terra, not even Elysia in all its glory, would ever suit us again. He knew, I think, that even though the Betas are genetically identical to us, they would never be able to relate to us, because they have what we have truly never had—a normal human life. He was quite visionary." He paused. "He is also my dear friend. It is tragic to see him come to these straits."

Nova felt as if her heart was going to burst. From the very first day of her time at Elysium, it had been drilled into her: _The Purifier's first responsibility here is to protect the masters._ That tenet was a part of her now, ingrained in her as surely as were the nanofilaments that strengthened her bones. Now, her failure loomed up before her.

Before she could give voice to her frustration, she felt Sera's small hand rest lightly on her shoulder. "Do not do this to yourself, Nova," she said in a voice too soft for the Master's ears. "Comfort yourself in the knowledge that many masters have lived and died while we were powerless to prevent it. They grow weary of the world, and of life, even when it is a life as pleasant as this. One by one, they take their own lives, or they allow accidents to happen. We do not understand it or condone it, but we allow them the freedom of choice, because it is what separates the humans from the units."

"And that is supposed to be comforting to me? To know that thousands of others died prior to this?" Nova shook her head. "Mother, I think your bedside manner is a little unorthodox."

"You miss my point," Sera replied. "The comfort is not in the deaths that have gone before. Rather, it is this, that where we are unable to stop them from taking their own lives, you were able to stop Antioch's life from being taken. Even if he dies now, you saved him for a time. And do not forget, Nova, that you also saved the Master and the Maker—" she indicated the female Alpha—"from certain death. You have done what any unit would die to do."

"Some did die," she said. "They just chose to do it for the opposite reason." She turned away from the tableaux at last, and faced Sera. Thanks to the Mother unit's counsel, she felt her crisis abating; now, it was time to put on her emotional armor, if not her physical armor. "Mother, I have determined that these units came directly from Terra. Had they been scanned upon arrival, they would have been discovered and detained, but they initated their attack just before the scans would have been performed."

She frowned. "I have also heard disturbing rumors from other units who are newly-arrived. Mother, is something going on on Terra that we should be concerned about?"

With a raised finger, Sera motioned her to silence. She glanced at the masters, who seemed now to be oblivious to everything except the condition of their fellow human; then she took Nova by the hand and led her out the door.

In the corridor, Sera paused. "Some things must not be said in front of the masters. The thing of which you speak is one of them. Yuna and I have determined that, unless the situation reaches a critically dangerous level, the masters will not be informed. We should not unnecessarily disturb their peace."

"Their peace seems to be well and truly disturbed already," Nova pointed out, glancing back at the door to the infirmary.

"Indeed. Still, there is no need for them to know that this represents anything other than a common aberration, which somehow managed to elude us. They need not know that this aberrant actually came from Terra, in a group, or that there is more going on here."

"_Is_ there more going on?" Nova said.

Sera studied Nova's face for a moment. "Walk with me," she said at last.

--

In the shuttle, Tracer made contact with Yuna through the Mindscan. He gave her a summary of the events inside the facility, and of what Bridge had told him. He omitted anything that would have led Yuna to suspect that Bridge had been different even before his infection with the as-yet unknown virus. When he finished, he stood in his circle of light and watched Yuna's face, waiting for her reaction.

"This explains much," she said. "We must now shift our priorities from mere defense to a concerted effort to find this Traitor. He is too dangerous to be allowed at large."

"Then, you believe what Megaman Bridge said?" Tracer's eyebrows lifted in surprise. ' I thought you would suspect that he was only raving in his aberrancy."

"You believe him, do you not?" Tracer nodded. "That is enough for me. I have never had any reason to doubt you. At any rate, it is difficult to command such anguish as you described, so I do not think that he was feigning the pain of his battle with himself. But enough of that; time is of the essence." She looked sternly at him. "I will consult with Sera, and when the time is right, we will disseminate this knowledge. In the meantime, continue to maintain secrecy with regard to your team and anyone else. I want you here at the Mother Zone within the hour; I will send another shuttle for your subordinates. You are authorized for orbital travel in order to save time." Each Purifier shuttle was equipped with the capacity for spaceflight, which was much faster, but the System normally restricted such flight due to Elysium's security regulations. "Once you arrive, we will discuss our next step."

"Of course. Thank you, Mother."

"Until then." Yuna backed away, receding into the darkness, and the mindscan released him.

Scowling, he ran his preflight checks, then took the shuttle up. When he had cleared the tops of the nearby trees, he angled the nose toward the stars and punched the thrusters. Purple faded to black, and space enveloped him.

--

Sera led Nova through the winding, highly defensible corridors of the Mother Zone. Taking her cue from Sera, Nova kept silent throughout the trip. Instead of talking, she studied the Zone as she never had before; she noted its defensive alcoves, its sensor grid, its long bridges that could be severed in the event of an invasion. Never had it occurred to her that an enemy might penetrate so far; now, with a master injured, she had to change her way of thinking. This was, after all, the most valuable prize on the station, because the Library was here. As long as the Library, with its genetic materials, was intact, there was hope of bringing back the Masters should they fall. Therefore, any enemy of the System would ultimately have to come here.

They stopped briefly in front of the door to the Library. "We have used the genetic materials here in the past," Sera said, "to reinitialize the Beta population on Terra. We have never yet used them to reinitialize Elysium. I fear, though, that that day may not be long in coming."

"Or it may never come," Nova replied. "Surely you don't think that the circumstances on Terra, whatever they may be, would herald death for the Masters? It could not be that bad."

"That is an odd statement, coming from you," Sera said, "when you just fought to save them from just such a death. But, no, I do not think so. I am simply being too melancholy. Come, I want you to see something in my quarters." She led Nova down a side corridor, past the door to the Library, a corridor that terminated in a single, simple door.

Elysium was far larger and more complex than any Terran facility; hence, it had no Nerve Center as such. There was a command chamber, however, from which Sera monitored the station's activity, and from which she could, if necessary, take control of any or all functions. That room was the outermost of Sera's chambers, and it was as far as Nova had ever gone. They passed through that chamber now; Sera's Servitor unit, Geetz, was busy at one of the workstations when they entered.

At the sound of their entrance, Geetz stood and turned, then bowed smoothly. He was a tall and olive-skinned android unit, with dark brown eyes and a tan cast to his long hair. A red jewel adorned his forehead, and he wore a long, sand-colored tunic. "Mistress Sera," he said. "You will be pleased to know that during your walk here from the infirmary, the Medical units have completed surgery. Master Antioch is expected to make a full recovery. Also, the Master and the Maker have each called to give their commendation to Megaman Nova—" he nodded to her—"for her valorous service." Nova found herself blushing in spite of herself; respect for the Alphas—and, by extension, their opinions—truly was bred into every unit.

"Very good," Sera replied. "I would second their commendations, although of course Nova is already aware of my opinion of her. Thanks to her efforts, all the masters remain with us. Have you compiled the data I requested?"

"I have. I must say that I find it alarming. Would you like it displayed here, or in your inner quarters?"

"We will view it inside. Thank you, Geetz." She gestured for Nova to follow, and led the way into the next chamber.

Nova stared around in surprise at the room. It was a sitting room of some sort, round like the command chamber, but smaller. The furniture consisted of two short sofas and an armchair, situated casually on a large, patterned, gold-and-maroon rug. A coffee table carved from cherry wood completed the set. Paintings adorned the wall; one displayed a spray of flowers spilling from a clear vase, while another was clearly a view of the city of Elysia as seen from the air. A simple, mid-sized monitor took up the rear of the wall, flanked by two doors that would lead off at angles from the room. Floor lamps stood at intervals around the room, all glowing at a cheerful level.

"Do you like it?" Sera said. "I understand your surprise. This room is modeled after the habits of the Betas, which I am told are in turn modeled after the way that the Alphas once lived. In truth, although the Master's residence is very spartan, which is by his own choice, many of the other masters lived in much this way here on Elysium."

"But why do you do it?" Nova said. "It seems out of character for a Megaman."

"Not entirely. The units who were built to emulate the human professions—like the Musicians in the residence earlier—they often live in much this way at Elysia. They are designed to appreciate such things. But I do it for a different reason." She gestured expansively at the room. "All of this—and the rooms beyond it—is an experiment for me. Here, I try to understand the masters by emulating them."

Nova followed Sera's gesture with her gaze. "Does it work? Do you understand them?" She herself never would, she thought. Even life in the Beta world couldn't prepare someone for the stark differences to be found in the lives of the Alphas.

Sera's face dropped. "No," she admitted. "I fear I will never understand them. There are facets to them, like the facets of a refractor. Try as I might, I can never seem to turn this 'refractor' far enough to see all the facets. And when I gaze into any facet, the depths beneath seem endless." There was a forlorn note in her voice that Nova found haunting.

Sera stood in silence for a moment, so long that Nova considered saying something to break the silence. She was spared the embarassment of fumbling for words when Sera's face brightened. "But that is not why we are here," she said. "Come to the monitor. I want you to see what, exactly, is happening on Terra."

--

Gatz ushered Tracer into the Nerve Center, where Yuna paced the floor. Tracer had a moment to think that he had never before seen her look so nervous; then she noticed him, and stopped. "Tracer!" she said. "I am glad you made it here safely. This news about this…Traitor…has me on edge." She managed to fill the word with scorn and concern at the same time.

"Thirty-nine units aberrant and terminated," Tracer said as he strode across the room. He stopped ten feet from Yuna, who had turned her back again. "That would make anyone anxious. There are barely enough units left at Calbania to maintain security. And of course, we do not know for certain that we can trust those units."

"I know we can," Yuna said. "There are fifteen units of third class and higher remaining at Calbania Island. I have personally Mindscanned each and every one for indications of aberration, and have pronounced them clean. All the remaining fourth and fifth class units have been deactivated until further testing is complete." She paused in thought. "That is, of course, assuming that the Traitor himself—or herself—is not there."

Yuna stepped over to a large monitor and activated it. A two-dimensional map of Terra, displaying its vast chains of islands, appeared on the screen. Twenty-two of the dots and splotches that represented islands were flashing red. "The flashing islands are those on which multiple aberrancies have been discovered. Of course, I do not need to explain that to you, because you have responded to nearly all of those distress calls." She cupped her chin in her hand and studied the board. "I am looking for a pattern by which we can identify this Traitor. What units have visited all of these places? Surely it must be a first- or second-class unit. No one else could have the necessary level of initiative."

"I gave that some thought during my flight, Mother," Tracer said. "I do not think we will find such a pattern."

And why is that?" She turned from the board to face him.

"Because we are still looking at this…virus, as though it were a normal aberration. Normal aberrants manifest themselves in a relatively short time after becoming aberrant within their minds. But this does not follow that pattern." He fell silent for a moment, thinking. "Bridge told me that he had labored long and hard to create a situation where he would be able to talk to me—because he knew that I was good at this, and that I was close to you," he added, using a line he had rehearsed. The true reason for Bridge's attempt to speak to him was still necessarily a secret. "I don't know exactly what he did, but I know that it doesn't fit the paradigm of a fast-moving aberration."

"Go on."

"It makes me think that perhaps these units were not infected recently. Perhaps they have lain dormant for a long time, and only recently were made to act."

Yuna stared at him. "That is a truly terrifying thought, Tracer. If you are right, we have no way of knowing who may already be under the Traitor's control, or when they may become active aberrants."

"Exactly. We don't even know with certainty that they were instructed at this time to act. All of this could be a planned series of events that was put in place long ago, complete with scheduling."

"And again, we have no way to know. I cannot Mindscan every individual—and even if I do, they may be infected after the fact." She turned back to the monitor. "We need to determine, somehow, whether these infected are able to transmit the virus, or whether it is the Traitor himself who must do the infecting. That will help us to determine the scope of our problem. Tracer, you must somehow bring back live units. I am aware that they self-terminate when captured, but if you can cause them to drop into stasis mode instead of terminating them, we can prevent them from self-terminating, now that we are aware of their tendency to do so."

"I will make every attempt." He made as if to bow, but Yuna stopped him with an upraised hand.

"There is more," she said. She fell silent, then, for a long while. When at last she spoke, it was in a tone Tracer had never heard from her before, a tone more suited to the child's form that she wore. It was fear. "Tracer, while you were making your way here, I received word from Sera that a group of aberrants—no, not just aberrants; infected, I am sure—a group of six infected Servitor units infiltrated Elysium." Behind her, Tracer let out a small gasp of surprise; but she continued. "They penetrated as far as the Center Area. They were stopped, but one made it all the way to the Master's residence. It critically wounded one of the masters before it was brought down."

"Is he still alive?" The question was immediate, and Yuna was gratified to hear him ask first about the wounded master, rather than any of the hundred other issues at stake.

"He lives. He has completed surgery, and will need a short time to recover. Elysium is a condign place for the masters, and I have no doubt that his healing will be swift and sure. Nevertheless, the thought that any aberrant, let alone these new aberrants, could penetrate so far, is intolerable. Therefore, Elysium has been closed to all traffic to and from Terra until further notice." As an afterthought, she added, "Sera and I agree that this is for the best."

"I am inclined to agree, as well," Tracer said. "Can we expect any assistance from Mother Two in dealing with this crisis?"

"In a manner of speaking," Yuna said. "Come, I will make contact with Sera, and we will explain." She led him to another monitor.

--

Nova was livid. "How could this happen, Mother? Twenty-two facilities? One hundred and sixty-eight units? This isn't possible! Aberrations don't happen in groups! It…it defies everything we know!"

"Things have changed, apparently," Sera said. "At any rate, I can give you a partial answer. While you were engaged in battle here, a team on Terra responded to the most recent call, the call you see at Calbania Island." Nova's heart jumped at that, although Sera wouldn't know it. "This is by far the largest outbreak yet, with thirty-nine units terminated. They appear to have been led by the island's Ambassador unit, Megaman Bridge, who was also terminated."

Nova's pulse was rising, and she found herself sweating, despite her neuroprocessor's usual control. She made a coordinated attempt to regulate her body, so Sera would not notice. "I am sorry to hear this," she managed.

"As am I. However, Bridge transmitted important information to the Purifier on the case before he died—I believe you will remember Megaman Tracer. As I recall, you were activated with him."

"I do," she said, thinking _Very well indeed._

"Megaman Tracer reports that Bridge claimed, under very believable circumstances, that there is a traitor among the units of the System. Although Bridge was unable, due to conditioning, to identify this traitor, he insists that this unit presents a greater threat than we have ever known. He is causing these aberrations by infecting the units with a sophisticated electronic virus. As I said, there is good cause to believe him."

Nova was silent, thinking. Inwardly she mourned for Bridge; he had not been a friend, but he had been a compatriot, and she knew that she owed him—even her life. But his information made it even more urgent; she knew immediately that the situation had to be contained. "What are we going to do?"

"At this time, we are not going to do anything. I have already placed Elysium on lockdown; no traffic will be permitted to and from Terra. This is for the purpose of determining the Traitor's limits, as well as for the protection of the masters." She noticed Nova's look of incomprehension, and went on. "Presumably, the Traitor has not been here himself. Had he been, he could have infected units already on board the station, rather than smuggle infected units aboard. Now, with our population closed to the outside, we will see if any of our own units become aberrant, which will in turn help us determine if the infected can pass on the virus. If they cannot—if only the Traitor can do so—we will have a major advantage."

Nova frowned. "Although I see your logic, I feel as though we should do more than sit here. Yuna will need all the help she can get."

Sera smiled, for the first time since the battle. "I thought that you would say that. Therefore, you will not be sitting here, as you say. I have an assignment for you."

--

Tracer stood impassively behind Yuna, with his arms folded and a set frown on his face, and listened to Sera explaining her reasoning in locking down Elysium. He understood why she was doing it, but at the same time, it seemed ludicrous. To restrict incoming traffic was one thing, but to restrict outgoing--! Elysium was relatively unlikely to harbor hidden infected. Its hundreds of Purifiers would make a safe—and therefore priceless—addition to the Terran forces. And now Sera had other plans! He scowled at the monitor in frustration.

He perked up when Sera called him by name. "Megaman Tracer," she called. " I want to commend you for everything you have done. You and your team have given us our framework for fighting this battle—for that is what it is becoming. Without you, we would have no idea what now faces us. Truly, you are the best Purifier on Terra, and the most suited for the task of leading this fight. Your service record is not long, but it speaks for itself."

Tracer took a step forward. "Mother, pardon me for any rudeness on my part, but…no matter how good I may be, what we need most is help."

"Correct, as usual. And I intend to help you, although I know that you are expecting more than I can provide at this time. Until such time as I can be sure that Elysium and the masters will not be at risk, I cannot strip the station of its defensive force. I will, however, send you my most trusted Purifier, to assist you in your pursuit of the Traitor. I think you will find her to be an excellent help; she has already proven herself on many occasions, and especially today, when she single-handedly saved the lives of all three masters. I am sure you will remember her—she remembers you, as well."

A moment before she stepped into the monitor's field, Tracer's blood ran cold. He knew who was going to appear.

With a small smile on her face, Megaman Nova stepped into view. "Hello, Tracer. It's good to see you again."

--


End file.
